Houchin, Evelyn

ORAL HISTORY OF EVELYN HOUCHIN
Interviewed by Don Hunnicutt
Filmed by BBB Communications, LLC.
September 6, 2013
MR. HUNNICUTT: This interview is for the Center of Oak Ridge Oral History. The day is September 6th, 2013. I am Don Hunnicutt in the Studio of BBB Communications, LLC., 170 Robertsville Road, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, to take an oral history from Evelyn Houchin about living in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Evelyn, please state your full name, place of birth and date.
MS. HOUCHIN: Evelyn Tucker Houchin. October 26, 1926.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And where were you born?
MS. HOUCHIN: Knoxville.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What was your father's name?
MS. HOUCHIN: Floyd Tucker.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And do you recall where his place of birth was?
MS. HOUCHIN: No.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What was your mother's maiden name?
MS. HOUCHIN: Rolen.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And do you recall where her place of birth was?
MS. HOUCHIN: It was in Knoxville but probably out in the rural section, somewhere I do not know.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about your grandfather's name -- your mother and father side?
MS. HOUCHIN: My mother's father was George Rolen and my dad's name was John Tucker.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about your -- on your other side of the your family, your other grandparents?
MS. HOUCHIN: I just don't remember that.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Okay. What about your father, do you remember about his school history?
MS. HOUCHIN: Back then he didn't get to go to school but they didn't get to go much. I think he just went to about the 4th grade.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about your mother's school?
MS. HOUCHIN: I don't know anything much about my mother other than she did say a few times that when the crops was in, that her daddy would even keep the girls out of school that they would help.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You have sisters and brothers?
MS. HOUCHIN: No.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What kind of work did your father do?
MS. HOUCHIN: He worked at [Candor?] Marble Mill for a little while and then he worked for [Kettners?] Dry Cleaners back when they deliver their cleaning at the home, you know.
MR. HUNNICUTT: He was a delivery person for the dry cleaners?
MS. HOUCHIN: Yeah, for [Kettners?].
MR. HUNNICUTT: And the [Kettners?] was located in Knoxville?
MS. HOUCHIN: Yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about your mother, did she work?
MS. HOUCHIN: [Appalachian?] Mill.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And what was her job?
MS. HOUCHIN: She opened fronts of the long underware like the service men wore, you know. And then a while she worked at William's Sandwich Shop up in the Market House.
MR. HUNNICUTT: That's the Old Market House up in the Square in Knoxville?
MS. HOUCHIN: Yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did your parents come to Oak Ridge or did you just come out here yourself. Give me a little history about that.
MS. HOUCHIN: Well I was a cashier at a store in Tennessee, big people to come for employment office on Union Avenue and so I went up there and I they saw what they've done and recall they would take me right then but me being young, my mother had to go sign for me and -- but I got on to Tennessee right away.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Well let me back you up minute. What schools did you attend in Knoxville, is that where you grew up? What part of Knoxville did you grow up in?
MS. HOUCHIN: Park City.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And that's located next to where?
MS. HOUCHIN: It's going a little bit like towards Burlington in Park City. Larry's School on Linden Avenue.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And did you graduate from which school in Knoxville?
MS. HOUCHIN: I went to grammar school and middle school for a while and I went Tyson Junior, down on Kingston Pike and the middle school which is called junior high. When I went -- stay for a little while and then when I went back I went to Stairtech in Knoxville. Up there it was just a brick building by Old City Hall.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And was that a specialized school?
MS. HOUCHIN: It's a technical school.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And what did you do there, what was your subject?
MS. HOUCHIN: Well mainly typing and distribution of education.
MR. HUNNICUTT: When you were going to school what was the dress like on those days for a girl going to school?
MS. HOUCHIN: Well, seem like just mostly little dresses and kinda. Once in awhile maybe you might see a pair of slacks but it wasn't all in blue jeans back then.
MS. HOUCHIN: Was your family -- would you say your family was poor or middle class or how would you rate your family?
MS. HOUCHIN: My mother and daddy had a really hard time. My daddy died when I was seven and my mother wasn't very strong and my aunt told us said "Well, we could make our home with her if we'd like." And I don't know what we would done. Had she offered us a home.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And where was that located?
MS. HOUCHIN: They lived on the East Clinton Avenue for a long time and then later moved on over on Forest Avenue when I was going to Tyson.
MR. HUNNICUTT: When you went to school did you walk to school or did you ride the bus, how did you get there?
MS. HOUCHIN: Just when it rain once in a while because we lived on Forest and Tyson was way down on Kingston Park. I was only seven when my daddy died and my mother was only 29.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You mentioned that you working as a cashier and the people from Tennessee Eastman came in and saw what you were doing and ask you if you wanted to come out here for employment.
MS. HOUCHIN: No. They had a -- they had a little ad in the paper of just a temporary replacement to come to up in Union Avenue and I went up there.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How old were you then?
MS. HOUCHIN: I was about 17 and they thought I was 18.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And you mentioned earlier that your mother had to give information for you to come out here to work?
MS. HOUCHIN: Yeah, back then they did. I mean not only out there but if -- you know that was back then the state, we all have to had parents signatures if you were a teenager.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me what you remember when you came out here for employment.
MS. HOUCHIN: Well, I was -- they brought us from Knoxville [inaudible] they're hard up to the C building in a bus and brought us over to the plant. Then that way they could get us in.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Which plant was it?
MS. HOUCHIN: Y-12
MR. HUNNICUTT: So you came from Knoxville on a bus. They took you to the AEC [Atomic Energy Commission] Administration building, from there you went to Y-12?
MS. HOUCHIN: They took us on a bus from there over to Y-12.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And so when you get to Y-12, what happen then?
MS. HOUCHIN: Well they interviewed me in the cashier's office and my boss there was a Rommie Stall and he was a German. Then Bill Quinman was over the cashier's office and I was on three to 11 just for a little while. He came to me one day and told me he said "I hate to tell you but I'm going to have to put you on night shift for about a couple of weeks." So they did and I had a friend that went to Sterchi’s and she'd been begging me to come up there and I said "I'd be the dumbest one in the class. Only you know if I make it you can."
So, I went up there and I thought well I'm off this week you know I mean chase around I'll go. So what I saw was done really well and I really liked it and I told Mother she said "You will never go back to quit." I said "We all go back." So in that then I started to school, went back to my boss then again and asked him could he put me up in the shift regular because I started to school and then they even let me leave early in order to catch the bus up there to come on to Knoxville.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Let me back you up a minute. Tell me how your shift is?
MS. HOUCHIN: Going at 11 at night, I work all night long until seven in the morning.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So where did you catch the bus to go back to Knoxville, do you live with your mother still in Knoxville at the time?
MS. HOUCHIN: Uh huh.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So where did you catch the bus to go back to Knoxville?
MS. HOUCHIN: It came back by the portals. It was still coming around by the portals. When the bus is back then they just lined up and it just filled up really rapidly with people, you know.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So, how did you know which bus to get on?
MS. HOUCHIN: Well, I mean you just got to an Army colored bus is I knew which one that you needed to go on.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you have a number or was something about the windshield, a marked key that illustrated where the bus went?
MS. HOUCHIN: I can't remember. Everybody just seemed to know you know.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So when you left Y-12 and the bus you went over to the Central Bus Station there or where did you go?
MS. HOUCHIN: It depend a lot of times because we stayed a lot of time on evening shift 30 minutes due to the fact that it would go over and pick up the Roane Anderson guards over by the Central Station and they got off a little earlier in there, but back then we went. When I was on our shift I would get off on Western Avenue about ten minutes to one in the morning.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So how long was you on this shift?
MS. HOUCHIN: Well I stayed down at until about four to six I guess, I got to cut in few half and then they put me then on days and I know I was pretty good if do sound rich and I know Mr. Martin told Mr. Stalls where in the world have you headed and that is when I put back on day shift because I won't go through up there.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What was your job duties? You mentioned register, tell me what that mean.
MS. HOUCHIN: Work in the cash register and we had a schedule. At one time we had 75 cashiers and we [inaudible] and see what register number we were going to. At one point what building it was the register where you -- you know where to go. So I was cashier.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now this is for the cafeterias, the eating facility?
MS. HOUCHIN: Yeah, we got a lot of people too. And we needed really go through there because I tried to. On top of that we had to check the trays, not like now the automation stuff. We had to count it on our head and create individual, their plate or their pie or salad or whatever and then they paid us plus the fact then we had to make the change for them.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember about how much a lunch or dinner meal would cost?
MS. HOUCHIN: No, because things are so inexpensive, you know back then when they like now. In fact I had one man I shall never forget him. He held up my line sometimes because pie was ten cents a slice and strawberry short cake when they are in season they were 15. So he stood there and he picked up the strawberry pie and the cake and look at it and he set it back and he pick it up two or three times and all of the matter of nickel. I'm sure that he ended up taking it. So that's the way it was and it's not like now, you know, and I have to always compliment, we had one of the best chefs that ever hit this town and we had the very best cook. He was retired chef out of the Navy.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What time did your shift start as far as serving people?
MS. HOUCHIN: The cafeteria -- the line itself, they had like 7:00 to 8:30 for breakfast shortly or something. But then lunch they started about 10:30 to 11:00.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Then did they serve evening meal as well?
MS. HOUCHIN: No.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Just breakfast and lunch?
MS. HOUCHIN: Well they had canteens and things and then -- that was the main cafeteria. We had other cafeteens and canteens from East gate all the way to the extension.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You said cafeteens. What's that mean?
MS. HOUCHIN: Well it was kind of -- it was more like a canteen but little bit more formal with a little bit more to choose from.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now that canteens were just machines you put money and get food out of, is that -- no?
MS. HOUCHIN: No.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What was the canteen like back then?
MS. HOUCHIN: Sorry, we had a grill and they got hamburgers or hotdogs and we had a soup you know and short orders sort of but hot nourishing food.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where was the main cafeteria located in Y-12, do you remember?
MS. HOUCHIN: Well when it started out it was considered as one. When you go in the North Gate straight down the hill and years, years later they build a bigger cafeteria at what they called 9704-5. We had let's say two or four , six -- about eight or ten registers on each side. It was long and somewhat go. Say some of the people worked in other areas, they didn't have time to come down there and that's why they had a choice and pretty nice smaller places to go somewhere else throughout the area.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall how much time people were allotted for eating breakfast or lunch?
MS. HOUCHIN: Well, they said about 30 minutes but they weren't overly strict at it they need roughly the bus -- they didn't really take advantage of them too much.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Were the canteens kind of spread out throughout the plant so that the travel time was real short to get to it?
MS. HOUCHIN: Yeah. They had a lot of choice, I mean like I said all the way to East Portal down at the very east end of the area all the way down into the extension. Going down one of them as a matter of fact we saw tickets and bus wants because it wasn't quite finished and but they had the best hot ham sandwiches you ever put in your mouth.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What do you remember about Bill and Jenny Wilcox at the Cafeteria?
MS. HOUCHIN: Well, she was always smiling and she wasn't -- real thin but -- I mean one real petit but she's really heavy and she had beautiful red hair and she smiled all the time and they were very pretty. I was proud of all of my customers.
MR. HUNNICUTT: They pretty much knew you by name going through your line so much.
MS. HOUCHIN: Yeah. I call it visiting, then one time way later long time -- when I worked later there over in the -- later I went over to X-10 when they called them like if I could come back to work and coming there one day and said "I just don't understand why you never hadn't gotten married." And I said "Well I am just like this, they call this smothering kind and I'm the motherly so I'll be smothering." That -- that travel from one end to that area to other in five minutes. So I would be a mother for friends, black and white.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You had mentioned you have a nickname named Thes. How did you acquire that?
MS. HOUCHIN: Well, that was just a story back when I went Young High School.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did most people know you by Thes?
MS. HOUCHIN: Yeah, a lot of them call me Thes, as a matter of fact I started to tell you a while ago when I was going home one day, we didn't have any Central portal back then, you had to walk all the way from down at -5 back up to the North Gate. A guy caught me with his safety hat on and wanted to know who Thes was, I said "Me. They call me Thes." He said what do you mean putting your name in my new laid concrete sidewalk and it was nice because it's double wide big and I said "Sir I didn't put my name in it." He said "It's up right there." I said. "Well I'm just going home one day and I told those guys they were working so hard if they wanted that to pass just to put Thes on it and I said I'm just acting crazy." I said "I was really surprised when they took the two sacks and I saw they smoothed the place it about so it was smooth and printed it really big. He used a little word of slang and he said -- down those steps he went he said "They probably get it all with plus the extension." We had a lot of laughs--
MR. HUNNICUTT: Which sidewalk was that?
MS. HOUCHIN: It was -- they later build, for a while we walked in the mud and then for a while from up there -- coming around the main building to get to the big cafeteria where we later, where they put this concrete sidewalk -- really nice concrete sidewalk and that laid pretty much all the way from North all the way down to the West.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was your name still on the sidewalk when you retired?
MS. HOUCHIN: Yeah and I thought to bring the plaque and I thought if you want to see pictures or not, and so I told [inaudible] you know go there one more time. So at my party he didn't say a word about going over there he went over there, he went over and made a picture of it. At my party he came to that plaque where my name was. It was kind of a little bit rough but it was legible from where it was in the sidewalk.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How many years did you work at the plant?
MS. HOUCHIN: Over at Y-12 I was there 15 ½ years and then back then in the meantime earlier I got married and later I got pregnant and they didn't let the early woman come back. So I didn't get to go back but weekly, monthly they got to come back but we didn't.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember how much your salary was? How much your money?
MS. HOUCHIN: I know by then putting down voluntarily quitting I could have -- they got to beg me to let this lawyer take it so they have been glad to give you back that five years and I said "No, I've got one of my other things back at the federal government passed on." I don’t want to be fussing. And I said "I don't want to be personal." I know one thing during the war, they were hiring them so fast that I had to work three months to get a nickel raised. Two friends I met -- two sisters they come in and made, I was working really hard to get that nickel day came in, they already set that up to 75 cents an hour.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So when you first went to work out there did they give you any kind of orientation about what to say or not to say?
MS. HOUCHIN: Oh yeah.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me about that.
MS. HOUCHIN: They warned us every day to keep our mouth shut of anything. You know if we saw or we thought we saw it just to not to say anything.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you ever hear anybody talking about anything going on?
MS. HOUCHIN: No. I really didn't, it's -- what I said everybody just had a good time and there's a lot of things that happened, back then was open until midnight. The skating rink was open 'till 2:30 in the morning at which sometimes I did skate till then. Then a lot to be able to, the people that worked like 4:00 to 12:00, or the second shift to be able to go to the show. They’d have a movie starting at 11:30, so people second shift could go to a movie. They had -- I mean you know it's just that time you didn't pay attention to it much.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you have any idea what was going on?
MS. HOUCHIN: No, I didn't.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How long did you live with your mother. Did you come out to Oak Ridge to live later on?
MS. HOUCHIN: Yeah. I had several friends and I got involved in a league and got to be playing softball for the company and I didn't have a car back then and just one boy I dated on vacation and he take me out down home and -- I stayed up all night a lot. In fact one of my best friends, she said "That's your room in there." And I had a key to her room and everything and I didn't have to worry then about, you know, going back home. My mother and my grandmother lived together and I went home a lot on weekends and sometimes if I have a ride with somebody. One guy later let me drive his car sometime and I told Mother, one man tried to choke me on my front porch, and I told her I said "When the time is starts to get dark again." I used to run to catch to work bus in front of our house hustling [inaudible] around depot and come around that when I knew the bus would come. I said "The time it starts getting dark." -- We lived on Forest Avenue then it was considered one of the shadiest streets in Knoxville. I said "I'm going to have a place out there where I don't have to be coming home." So I did, that's later when I moved in Tabor Hall.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Why did the man choked you?
MS. HOUCHIN: Well, I don't know whether he was after my purse. Sheriff the chief of that town thought -- he intended maybe to put his hand over my mouth and another one around me and drive me way about a hundred between those houses. It looked like he tried like he tied me with an old and dirty silky looking piece of a bed spread that my mother said she saw out of the garbage next door. But I followed him and I butt my head back and forth and it made it sound like taxi cabs coming around the corner because people raised their windows back then. I said "I know who he was." But I go to arrest the man and I took that finger and went back. I made it even at the back of his hand and I could pull it kind of away hit on the brown or gloves. So when I fell -- [inaudible] my purse and I went straight on the school. The guy is taking [inaudible] it bounces on the step and he just jumped down off the porch. My grandmother finally hears "That sounds like her screaming." And he came back and picked up that purse. I wound up on 15 Street and after a while our paperboy went that way and he said he comes sliding out like roller ball in his feet. The police came we had call [inaudible]. Mother said he could just have killed me -- there she was [inaudible] and I said "Oh, my pictures -- on the pictures he’s on it." So I believe it was a black fellow I've had seen earlier when really studying coming up from Grand Avenue way.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So that's when you decided you wanted a home in Oak Ridge?
MS. HOUCHIN: Well that's when I did moved in a dormitory.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And where was the dormitory located?
MS. HOUCHIN: Right up there at the-- what they called that Town Side.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Going Central Avenue across in the Cafeteria.
MS. HOUCHIN: Across in front of the cafeteria.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me about the dormitory room. Describe it for me.
MS. HOUCHIN: Well it was small and of course later I got a double and it was nice and I know when it's cold weather some of us [inaudible] a small can of milk in the winter and later we got some small refrigerator. The other thing about Oak Ridge everybody was so close and somebody gone to Knoxville, somebody else gone here very young we wait [inaudible] at Central Cafeteria before we go home. If you're going to find somebody, just hunt him, just go to the cafeteria because they come by.
MR. HUNNICUTT: This was a women's only dormitory, is that right?
MS. HOUCHIN: Oh, no. I don't know -- [inaudible] dormitory it showed at one time.
MR. HUNNICUTT: But where you're staying it was just for women only?
MS. HOUCHIN: Yeah. They don't have no mix men or women or mix.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So, did you have a roommate or were you in the room by yourself?
MS. HOUCHIN: I was in the room myself until later October. My friend of mine that came because he came to work I said "You just come back and sleep a few more hours in my room, there's no need for you to rent a room up there."
MR. HUNNICUTT: So you had a bed and what else was in the room?
MS. HOUCHIN: We had a bed and one of the best bed, I wish I had bought one. I got me what we call a desk and the wood is solid. We had a bed and we had that table with the mirror and a really nice chair and a really nice bath tub, and about a five drawer chest and the doors are really good.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about the bathroom facilities? Tell me about that in the dormitory.
MS. HOUCHIN: Well we had -- just a little piece around from my room but down a couple of steps there's the shower and they were two or three showers and we had one space that had several basins because I know one girl liked that because it's nylon hose at that time I went down to the sink that day and I thought she's going to be buried and it was really nice and several tools and that was -- in each end plus upstairs. It had a really nice lounge upstairs too.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was there an area in dormitory where you first came in like a reception area. Is that where you would get your messages or see if you have any.
MS. HOUCHIN: Yeah. Our mails-- our mailing system was kept there and she put our -- we had a number, you know, like I live in 139, that would go in the pigeon hole. Then if some of the girls their date was going to come they just go to the desk and that's where they get telephones and they would page them you know or whoever they had come to see.
MR. HUNNICUTT: They had a PA system in the dormitory?
MS. HOUCHIN: I can't remember how she got it but anyway the -- a lot of time they knew they were coming. The men weren't allowed back in the women's dorm. Now they're in the front lobby, they had two or three couches and come for me and sat on the floor against the wall right across from the desk clerk and talk to her.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you eat very much in the Cafeteria across the street?
MS. HOUCHIN: Well, occasionally, I mean you know if you wanted a salad or pie if you had maybe had to work or something you know they had about [inaudible] and good food.
MR. HUNNICUTT: When you were working out at Y-12, will they allow you to eat?
MS. HOUCHIN: Oh yeah --
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you have to pay for it? It's free for the employees. So after that you probably didn't want much to eat at the time you got home. You're ready to go to bed and sleep to the next time you went to work.
MS. HOUCHIN: Take a piece of pie home with you if you wanted.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So if you wanted to find someone you just went over at the Cafeteria and sit there 'cause most people would wander around there.
MS. HOUCHIN: They come by. One time at ten if they had a chance or gas to go to Knoxville and they would come back by and have the time to have a cup of coffee and probably another hour or something or talk.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You mentioned something about the Cafeteria fire. Did they have fire in the Cafeteria?
MS. HOUCHIN: That fire -- Central Cafeteria caught on fire way after --
MR. HUNNICUTT: Many years later.
MS. HOUCHIN: Yeah.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Yes it did. So what did you do for fun when you live in Oak Ridge during those days.
MS. HOUCHIN: Well we had a variety of boyfriends and we skated and we bowled on a league and we had a softball team later back when we went to Memphis. One year they took us ten hours on the road by bus that we won and I got the softball in my cedar chest now.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What was the name of the team?
MS. HOUCHIN: Well I can't come up with our bowling team and I can't remember right of top of my head what a softball was but that slow pokey bus you know one with [inaudible] buses.
MR. HUNNICUTT: They didn't have installed either?
MS. HOUCHIN: No, that's right. The ten hours is slow but we had a got a good time.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where was this skating rink located?
MS. HOUCHIN: At [inaudible] down at Jefferson, right across from -- is that Vermont Shell -- no that's not Vermont. Right down there is where bike shop is now, down the hill a little bit.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Across from where the cafeteria was on Jefferson on early days.
MS. HOUCHIN: The cafeteria was back on over. As a matter of fact the skating rink didn't have a restaurant and you had to pull your skates off if you needed a restroom and walk over to the cafeteria and I know years later they had him to put it in, he says, the public place but it was nothing just a stall or they have to put in a restaurant.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Well describe to me what the skating rink look like.
MS. HOUCHIN: Well it was a very large, as a matter of fact I had skated quite a bit at Chilhowie Park in Knoxville and did aerobics, you put your leg up to your nose. As I was going backwards down there one day and had to look up and just about struggling that middle post in that stand. But I was used to that, you know, you could go out and around -- there for a while you would pay and you'll get a number and then when your time was up they call that number out. If they called your number you had to get out the floor because others are waiting to get in or you could repay if you want to stay again and they would put the signs up and a lot of people would come and stand around the sides and watch you skate. From outside it's lower that they could stand there.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So they had some kind of swing out windows they open up so people outside can look in.
MS. HOUCHIN: Uh huh.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What type of floor was in the skating rink?
MS. HOUCHIN: It was wood. It was -- not that big but it was real good I mean for us anybody have --
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did they have music?
MS. HOUCHIN: Oh yeah. For a while Doug Mara played that organ down there and his little girls. One of those pictures that I have brought in that envelop, and of course when they -- when they made Oak Ridge an open city on the March the 19th we skated on the float.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Yeah. We’ll get to that in a minute after that. I know about that. So how much did it cost to skate?
MS. HOUCHIN: Seem like -- you know I just don't remember. I remember a fellow that worked over -- where he had about four children and of course he didn't bring one, he didn't bring all his children you know. And I can't remember if it was 50 cents for that length of time.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Would that be skate rental to or did you have to rent skates or --
MS. HOUCHIN: I had my own of skates. In fact I give [inaudible] that one time for one of favorite skates.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You gave a what?
MS. HOUCHIN: Shoes for a [inaudible] boots they were leather so we had to use shoe shine.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So you mentioned you skated at Chilhowie Park, did you start skating at the young age?
MS. HOUCHIN: I learned to skate on the sidewalk. But I lived on Jefferson when I was in grade school and my mother bought me a little pair of roller skates for Christmas and I wore them all the time climbing [inaudible].
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall the skates you used to have that you clamped on to your shoes.
MS. HOUCHIN: Yeah, I have that.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember any weddings at the skating rink that took place?
MS. HOUCHIN: No, I know they had one or two but I wasn't really acquainted with them. But I remember their talking about someone getting married on skates.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you -- were you acquainted with Betty and Bert and Virgil Johnson?
MS. HOUCHIN: Yeah, I know Virgil Johnson, he bowled didn't he?
MR. HUNNICUTT: Yes and they both skated back on those days.
MS. HOUCHIN: I might have to -- I tell you what I did every morning going to that area to [inaudible] and I tried to connect as many names with many badges as I could. I learned a lot. With a lot of people you just talk to them just really well. But I never didn't know that I'm going to introduce him and say "I'm sorry you have to tell me your name." Somebody one time that the way he is talking I thought that was somebody your family you didn't even know.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember what's your badge number was?
MS. HOUCHIN: Yeah, I have 18782 and then I had a 15575.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now if you took your badge home with you and you happen to forget it what happen then?
MS. HOUCHIN: We had to go down to the [inaudible] and they gave us a tie to get in.
MR. HUNNICUTT: If you lost your badge what would happen?
MS. HOUCHIN: Well they just later have to make us another one. I lost one day up there and it come [inaudible] I'm clumsy.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where did you do your bowling?
MS. HOUCHIN: We did -- we had bowling at the Central which was underneath kinda up there, it was kind of steps to the 10Z Cafeteria. Then we bowled sometimes down there an hour after it was build and then seem like we bowled at one of the others too. I would bowl but one night a week. I had bowled at least seven for somebody from one night but I did try two or three nights bowling.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you recall how much it cost to bowl?
MS. HOUCHIN: Seems like about a dollar or a dollar and a quarter unless you have a sponsor or of the team. We weren't sponsored. In fact that's kind of when I kind of give it up. Later I'm married and then I take my son with me and of course all the girls they handle him, you know, and everything and he tried so hard to stay awake and I said "I'm not going to punished him like that anymore." I have to get up really early to go to work to myself and he loves to ride around so what little bit I pay and let me be my outlet. What little I pay through you knows us to going -- I'll just say that for gas and take him to the drive-in or something.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember your highest bowling score?
MS. HOUCHIN: Well I know I had a 202 one time and then I know I had a the guy calls it -- it's unusual to bowl the same score and I had 395 one night and I got it's kind of --
MR. HUNNICUTT: A triple award?
MS. HOUCHIN: Uh huh.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How many people were on the bowling team?
MS. HOUCHIN: I think there were five.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember who they were?
MS. HOUCHIN: Well I bowled with different girls but Katherine Hopkins was on our team and most -- and Roselle Kennedy and I can't remember [inaudible] with our team -- the actual team.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How many lanes was Central Bowling alley at that time?
MS. HOUCHIN: They could have used more.
MR. HUNNICUTT: There was a small bowling alley wasn't it?
MS. HOUCHIN: Well that was about as large anywhere around rather than Central. I mean, well, you had to run up to go get something to drink, you know back at the counter if you wanted to. Terrace we bowled at Terrace quite a bit too.
MR. HUNNICUTT: It was that Old Terrace was that Premiere Alley in the Oak Ridge.
MS. HOUCHIN: That was where they had the dancing -- that Francis Craig the orchestra there -- dancing you know and it was one of the better alleys to bowl on.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So where did you go when you go on a dates, what did you do?
MS. HOUCHIN: Well we had a -- we had a drive-in and we had through the you know [inaudible] too. Then once in a while if anybody had extra gas they pile a car full or we take advantages and then maybe go to Knoxville or something or over to Clinton.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you have any problems getting a date?
MS. HOUCHIN: No. We really didn't.
MR. HUNNICUTT: There was quite a bit more young women than there men?
MS. HOUCHIN: Well we had quite a lot, we had a quite lot of men, of course, women too but -- and a lot of times just big guys and just had a really good time. I will tell you that -- we got a lot of things as cashier you couldn't buy outside. We had big chocolate candy bars about that big. Fifty cents. I never did smoke. Later it got a little hard their getting cigarettes over there. Then so once or twice that they got a little extra gas because they lived -- you know kind of a little bit further away and that give them a little more gas [inaudible] paycheck on globe. So they nearly knocked me down it got around every two weeks it knocked me down, I said "Don't you forget send me your cigarette envelop." So lot of my -- I will swap a cigarette envelop for a guy’s envelop and that gave me boys more gas going around.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me about going in and out through the gates of Oak Ridge.
MS. HOUCHIN: Well we didn't have any problems other than I was scared to death they would stop me and I didn't get no driver's license, and Edgemore had been condemned and they put to the force and you had to stay down and cross either you get off that would be too bad. My mother told me one day she said "If you're going to drive, go get your license." I had always had straight shift and I was scared to drive here, you know, and we had no problem there.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You said Edgemore Bridge.
MS. HOUCHIN: Uh huh.
MR. HUNNICUTT: That was a single lane bridge, wasn't it?
MS. HOUCHIN: Yeah.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So, did you have any problem with being on the bridge when someone else is coming in the other way?
MS. HOUCHIN: No, we just waited if we did but I worried about me crossing [inaudible] because I would be driving home with somebody's car is but I made it all right.
MR. HUNNICUTT: It wasn't your car, it was someone else's?
MS. HOUCHIN: Uh huh. I didn't have a car until about ‘53.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So, when you came through the gate what did they do at the gate?
MS. HOUCHIN: Well they just spoke and a lot of time look at your badge and if they bring down that something and which they hardly ever did you know. Then time or two different friends before I moved out here got me a pass it would be at the gate waiting for me before I could get on then.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What gate was that when you had the pass?
MS. HOUCHIN: Elza.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And would they meet you at the gate?
MS. HOUCHIN: Yeah. They knew I was coming and then I had a pass waiting on me.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did that restrict you from staying on any length of time with that pass?
MS. HOUCHIN: [inaudible]
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, when you get a pass at Elza did they had a badge for you at that time?
MS. HOUCHIN: It is tie. It was just a tie.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Were you supposed to wear that the whole time you were in Oak Ridge.
MS. HOUCHIN: Yeah.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me about did you attend any dances on the tennis courts?
MS. HOUCHIN: If I did it, it was maybe more but I went sometimes for friends -- with friends on the tennis court but I've been to that at Jefferson and over at the Terrace. We had some good time.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was that a free dance or did you have to pay?
MS. HOUCHIN: Well, one time Jefferson -- I don't remember we paid anything but just a lot of times in fact we commented that one guy that came all the time and they were offering to buy me a coke or pay a little bit and then they wanted him to say that he get lunch and go lunch with everybody else's date.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So how do you travel back and forth to the Oak Ridge?
MS. HOUCHIN: Well we had area buses. In fact I’ve still got one token that I have and if you live long time you just run so you wouldn't missed it and get on the bus. They were everywhere.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So you had a token. Where did you get the tokens?
MS. HOUCHIN: I can't remember where we get those little tokens.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did they have transfers too on the bus so if you got off one and you get another one, you get a transfer.
MS. HOUCHIN: It seems like later -- same transfer. I never did I have no reason to have transfer.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So the atmosphere sounds like it was just a great big good time with a lot of young people?
MS. HOUCHIN: We did, we had a good time. I give anything people of today [crosstalk] --
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you feel safe and those days?
MS. HOUCHIN: Heavens, yes. I walked down and turned back more times than on the bus just come to the Central. You know if we skated long and I walk [inaudible].
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you ever have to use the hospital?
MS. HOUCHIN: No, I don't believe I did. We had a really good medical, it was better than lot of the hospital. I don't remember ever going to the hospital.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What do you remember about door to door salesman in Oak Ridge. Do you remember anything about that? What about whiskey, beer?
MS. HOUCHIN: I learn how to smell a beer without vomiting and a boy I dated he's bad and we've been around here at the Central bowling alley and over here was a counter the men would go up buy a beer and sit on our table and their minding their own business, I always had admired them, they get out work 12 hours and just come in and leisurely have a beer before they went home. So we are coming home one night and [inaudible] he saw me turning green and he just give me a shove and I hit the fresh air just in time and the way I learned to do around that is people calling me dancing and had drink a beer and you could smell it little and I got from that I could take the smell or something.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you have any of your friends try to smuggle in whiskey from outside?
MS. HOUCHIN: I know some of the women and that went to I believe it was Oakdale or somewhere and they have to lie about it of going up there getting some booze or something and they hide the bottle underneath the baby's crib blanket in the car and they just most of them are there.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What do you remember or where were you when you hear about them dropping the bomb on Japan?
MS. HOUCHIN: I was at the Chilhowie Skating Rink fixing my skate when they announced it loudly.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What do you think about that?
MS. HOUCHIN: I just -- it was unreal because I had an uncle that was just like a brother if I could ever had one and he was on that USS Arizona and he kept asking on the letter Mom and he didn't let him alone and he was going to be court marshaled and he got off -- it happen that he got off about three minutes or so on to another ship before the Arizona was sunk and it was so close that my grandmother got a telegram he was missing. She [inaudible] to get that telegram and the phone rang next to her and they say he's all right.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So let's talk a little bit about March 1949 when they open the gates to the City of Oak Ridge and they had this big parade and speeches and parties and --
MS. HOUCHIN: It was something.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me what you remember about that.
MS. HOUCHIN: So many people from different companies and floats -- they made floats and different things and they had a parade -- and they'd lined up where all those flags used to be down in -- all down to Middletown. There were lines and we would have to get on those lines. It was all the way down -- turn back all the way back coming towards the stands and it broke up down there about a little [inaudible] where it used to be and my skate and dress is set and I like froze to death. The wind was terrible, the sun was pretty but that wind was terrible after. As they come by the main line come by each road and then it was -- I think it was the third time to fall in line -- that part was three hours long. Then after we get out there though and we could start moving skating I was kind of warmed up but that dress was awful and that's the coldest wind. It will go right through you.
MR. HUNNICUTT: The parade started at Middletown went down to Turnpike to Tahoe Road [crosstalk]--
MS. HOUCHIN: That pretty much where it brought us.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Tennessee to Jackson Square and then back over in [Federville?]. I want to show a picture of you on this back of a float at Myers Skating Rink. Hold that book up there and point out on the picture who -- where you are in that photograph.
MS. HOUCHIN: That's me right there.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about on the top photograph?
MS. HOUCHIN: That's me right there with Bill and he died just recently.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Turn it around and let the camera see the picture. You were on the white outfit that's Bill with you?
MS. HOUCHIN: Uh huh.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Who are the other people on the float?
MS. HOUCHIN: The boy in the back a little shorter he was one of my and I believed him -- you can't see her but I'm pretty sure it's Rosetta Hale with him. Then the little girl that was Mira that played the organ that was her daughter.
MR. HUNNICUTT: There was another younger girl in the picture.
MS. HOUCHIN: That's Johnny [Rosenbol?].
MR. HUNNICUTT: So that was on the back of a truck bed.
MS. HOUCHIN: They made the float that we were [pulled?] we made the best that we could at Oak Ridge Road [inaudible]
MR. HUNNICUTT: And you started down the Turnpike and whenever the parade was stopped was that when you would skate?
MS. HOUCHIN: No.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Then you would skate while the truck was moving.
MS. HOUCHIN: Yeah.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So what all did you do on the back of that truck?
MS. HOUCHIN: Well we didn't, we can’t do a whole lot but I mean we made circles, or you know, or kind of moved our feet around not just stand still or sitting on one side.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Okay. Was that pretty difficult to do the truck moving?
MS. HOUCHIN: No because it moved really slow to you know.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So what do you remember about the crowds on the side of the street.
MS. HOUCHIN: Oh Lord. They were something you could tell all those old cars and they stared. They really turned out, they're really are too.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So that --
MS. HOUCHIN: I remember that Rod Cameron with that horse and I remember the [inaudible].
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where they in front of you or behind you, do you remember?
MS. HOUCHIN: You know I just don't remember for sure now because there were so many lined up in that parade.
MR. HUNNICUTT: I've been told when Marie McDonald’s car would stop autograph seekers would go try to get autographs and that held the parade up.
MS. HOUCHIN: She got a little woozy, I think were she's over with to somebody. I didn't see her but somebody else is calling she was.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Oh she maybe had a little drink during the parade to keep warm maybe.
MS. HOUCHIN: I guess maybe, I don't know.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So you said it was pretty cold that day.
MS. HOUCHIN: The wind -- the temperature is -- if that wind hadn't been so sharp, it was awful.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So after you got out of the float at the end of the parade what happened after that, did you go to any of the other functions they had during the day?
MS. HOUCHIN: You know I can't remember, I'm sure some of us did but I just really can't remember right up the top of my head about that.
MR. HUNNICUTT: The American Museum of Atomic Energy opened that same weekend down the old Jefferson Cafeteria. Did you ever go in to the museum?
MS. HOUCHIN: Oh, yeah.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What do you remember about that?
MS. HOUCHIN: I remember you hear so much about mercury. Back then everybody was getting a dime with that slick mercury all over it. I remember that and I guess I remember kind of going more lately you know that Center Cafeteria this Village Cafeteria for a long time down there.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you spend more of your time in the West in Jefferson area than you did the other part of the town?
MS. HOUCHIN: Well I had several friends that lived all the way down. One of my very best friends her family lived on Robertsville down 600 blocks and then of course the table is up the other way and I had friends up there and we were just sort of scattered really. I say so many times I worked for people from all over the world every environment that you can imagine. I met some of the nicest of my friends all I ever have in my life.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me what you remember about the mud out in Oak Ridge on early days.
MS. HOUCHIN: Well for a while I didn't put [inaudible] we just lay on Monday night and the shoes I had that synthetic sole back then it didn't take a shoes to get them. Those poor people would come to town and leave their shoes up on my counter near my register that mud is that thick. Thrilled to death that we had their size.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, tell me about where you were working at this time?
MS. HOUCHIN: Polish Shoes in Knoxville. I didn't write about that down.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How long had you been working there?
MS. HOUCHIN: About 9 months I guess or a little longer but he kind of told me he sure but they told me in the main office I have to put it down on reference and he said "I'll give you a written [inaudible] anywhere you want one.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember back on those days, what did you hear about Oak Ridge before you came to work out here?
MS. HOUCHIN: All I heard about was that here comes a bunch of Oak Ridgers or they have every kind of coat they have or scarf on you can imagine and the muddy shoes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did the women dress pretty well?
MS. HOUCHIN: Well, yeah I mean a lot of them they wear slacks and things like that.
MR. HUNNICUTT: When you lived in Oak Ridge, where did you go to do your shopping if you needed anything.
MS. HOUCHIN: What we really have is some nice places to shop than now and have a lot of us women left to go [inaudible].
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where was that located?
MS. HOUCHIN: For a while it was just straight shop up there near the Ridge [inaudible] and then later it moved down there kind of down to the Square in Justice -- kind of to the right side of [inaudible] used to be.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Down in the New Downtown [crosstalk]. Up in the Old Jackson Square area, what some of the stores you remember up there?
MS. HOUCHIN: Well Ms. [Katherine?] kind of a winter dress shop down this side of Spinners Laundry and then of course I always remember the man he was so nice with the shoe store up there.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What was that stores name, do you remember? Was that Howard Shoe Store?
MS. HOUCHIN: Uh huh.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you do any grocery shopping while you lived down there.
MS. HOUCHIN: Not much. I may have when I live down on Jefferson and I had my son and then I have things to go and then --
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was your son born in Oak Ridge?
MS. HOUCHIN: Uh huh. We still had about to up in the old Hospital and he was born in the old Hospital.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What year was that?
MS. HOUCHIN: 1960.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And what his name?
MS. HOUCHIN: Barry.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And where did you live at that time?
MS. HOUCHIN: I live down Hamilton Circle.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What type of house is that?
MS. HOUCHIN: It was -- I don't know whether what do you call those hats?
MR. HUNNICUTT: Is that a TDU?
MS. HOUCHIN: It might be. We rent to our end from Neil and Francis --
MR. HUNNICUTT: So it was the two family duplex?
MS. HOUCHIN: In fact I really love it up there because and I always say if I could [inaudible] and they decided that they hated to ask to move but they decided they wanted to make one big family of the [inaudible]
MR. HUNNICUTT: What was your husband's name?
MS. HOUCHIN: Bill Houchin.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What did he do?
MS. HOUCHIN: He was a machinist over at 9212.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How did you met him?
MS. HOUCHIN: On a job.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did he come through your line?
MS. HOUCHIN: Uh huh.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Then he kept coming through your line pretty often?
MS. HOUCHIN: Yeah, and then of course some of his friends on one Sunday were going to go boat riding and water skiing , somebody said "Well why don't you ask her to go." And he thought she wouldn't go. Then they said "Why don't you ask her?" So he asked me and we went boat riding and of course it amazed me he was kind of clumsy like me but they really give him -- really hard time to throw him and I mean he really with him on those skis. So we got [crosstalk] --
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where was that, what lake was that?
MS. HOUCHIN: You know I don't remember exactly, if it was down toward Melton Hill or something I can't remember and he had to work shift.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What's the inside of the TDU look like?
MS. HOUCHIN: Well some of them had a one bedroom on one end and two on the other and some, they were just a few, I had 2 and 2 and then they had a three bedroom and they’d get a living room and had a kitchen. It had a wood like cabinet and my husband throw that one out. Imagine that's our kitchen and [inaudible] really nice. There's a really small hallway and one bedroom sit this way and then another one sits this way and they had a little small room, kind of a small room that I think is where we lived in. I really 10 years from lady I worked with during the war.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What type of heat was in the TDU?
MS. HOUCHIN: Well, way back MSI we had coal chutes and they come periodically and fill those coal chutes up and just filled them up, we don't have to pay for it I mean they just keep it full and we heated it with coal. Later a friend of mine when I thought I was going to get by mine I'm still bitter about that. My friend took the old stove out and I had a really nice thermo 220 heater and I had to just turn that on and it wouldn't take long it would heat up and the kitchen was really large and then later a friend gave me another one and said just leave it over kind of one corner here if you need an extra or something over there so I use those heaters as long as I lived there.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How do you wash your clothes?
MS. HOUCHIN: At a washer dryer combination.
MR. HUNNICUTT: In early days?
MS. HOUCHIN: No. When my son was first born like one of my friends we went to the laundromat for diapers and things like that and she’d watch my house for me. Finally then I said "Well, with what I pay for diapers service it will always make her take some money for washing my towels." Then I don't like my time having to go sit at the laundry, I just put two or three more dollars with it and get have seen those combination wash and dry where you put that in you have to be moving part of it washer and it went through so I had that.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So where was the laundromat located?
MS. HOUCHIN: Well we had one down at Jefferson and we had -- a friend of mine running that one down at [Rowe?].
MR. HUNNICUTT: And this was about what year was this?
MS. HOUCHIN: It was there about 1960 but I went through some like when my son was born.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now prior to living at TDU, where you -- you know lived in the dorm and then live in the TDU, where did you lived in between that time.
MS. HOUCHIN: No place.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You stayed in the dorm that a long time.
MS. HOUCHIN: Yeah. Well --my friend live down at [inaudible] Circle and I was playing ball and everything and she told me I've said, "This room and here is yours." And so I could always go down [Juanita's?]
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember what school your son attended?
MS. HOUCHIN: Yeah, he went to school in Oak Ridge and he went for Oak Ridge High School.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you think that the Oak Ridge school system was a good system?
MS. HOUCHIN: I sure do. I do very much.
MR. HUNNICUTT: I want to mention a few places and tell me what you remember about it. We already talked about the Oak Terrace Ball Room, what do you remember about that? You mentioned they had dancers upstairs, was that where the bowling was?
MS. HOUCHIN: It was really nice.
MR. HUNNICUTT: The most nicest --
MS. HOUCHIN: You never heard of any slang or old fashion or it was really nice they got good food there too.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How about the Snow White Drive In?
MS. HOUCHIN: It was good too. I had a lot of friends.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember where is located?
MS. HOUCHIN: Yeah. It's along Oak Ridge Turnpike.
MR. HUNNICUTT: About where?
MS. HOUCHIN: Well, let's see -- I don't know my direction. Kind of [inaudible] because they took the last dorm, I wanted to leave something for the younger people and he was -- did you say the other side of --
MR. HUNNICUTT: Wait a second, across the road from the Central Bus Station?
MS. HOUCHIN: I'd say give or take a few feet.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember a laundry next door later on here.
MS. HOUCHIN: Yes. There is. It's there somewhere.
MR. HUNNICUTT: I believe it was down Tyler --
MS. HOUCHIN: Well it maybe down on the corner there because --
MR. HUNNICUTT: You mean the New York Cleaners --
MS. HOUCHIN: Yeah, and --
MR. HUNNICUTT: So, the Snow White Drive In, what do you remember about it. Where you ever inside?
MS. HOUCHIN: All the time. Everyday. Drive-in, get waited on in your car.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So they have curb hops?
MS. HOUCHIN: Yeah. I had a friend that lived in dorm, she never ceases to amaze me. She was petite. One of the main secretaries of AEC. She came home to take her nap. She wanted somebody to go eat with her about 10:30 or 11:00 at night and she got up -- she had that hair, all that make up, and headed home in high heels shoes, her foot was about like that and a fur coat and that would be it and she go eat. We went to the [inaudible] -- for a while the rest was down there underneath [inaudible]. I said "Lord [inaudible] with you looking like you're attending a ball or somewhere and she go back home back to sleep, go to bed.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You mentioned the Mayflower. What was that?
MS. HOUCHIN: It was a really nice restaurant [inaudible].
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was that kind of off the other side of where Tennessee was located.
MS. HOUCHIN: No, it was on the same side.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Well I mean across the --
MS. HOUCHIN: Across [crosstalk]
MR. HUNNICUTT: What type of food did they serve there?
MS. HOUCHIN: They serve great and they had good steaks. I hosted and waited a couple of nights for [inaudible].
MR. HUNNICUTT: Mike [Capello?].
MS. HOUCHIN: Uh huh.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What some of the other places that you remember visiting in those days? You talked about --
MS. HOUCHIN: Well at the -- where the Armory was -- what did they call the restaurant down there?
MR. HUNNICUTT: There was an Adam's Cafeteria down there in that area where the dorm --
MS. HOUCHIN: It was on the left 105 and the Armory sits back there overseeing the Armory and then right over here was the this white building, a lot of people went there it was a restaurant also [inaudible]
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember in the days when doctors used to make house calls?
MS. HOUCHIN: Yeah.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me a little bit about that?
MS. HOUCHIN: Well I didn't know of any of those, I hear but I may not see and heard and I wondered some of them used to do it all. You didn't have to go to this and this and this for that everything [inaudible]
MR. HUNNICUTT: So you had one doctor, Dr. Eversole you had?
MS. HOUCHIN: Yeah and they were darn good too.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So if you had someone sick at home you can call the doctor's office and make arrangement for them to come to your home?
MS. HOUCHIN: Yeah. A lot of them would. I remember more less about my grandfather, he lived up of Martin Mill Path which we call that Hangout Country and some would come and has a time for him Mr. Petty [Gobough?].
MR. HUNNICUTT: That's over in the Knoxville area?
MS. HOUCHIN: Uh huh.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Well, what you use the hospital in Oak Ridge or how much did you use to, do you think it was a good hospital?
MS. HOUCHIN: Yeah, if I hadn't been through a domestic situation and they didn't pay much and they’d call me because they were interested and there's another cashier that --I didn't ever left, I wouldn't even [inaudible]. We were busy and we really worked.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So you worked at the hospital?
MS. HOUCHIN: I worked two years in the main office.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And what years were those, do you recall?
MS. HOUCHIN: Well let's say -- I say roughly ‘61 or ‘62 around on that, a little after my son was born.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about the dental offices, do you recall using the dentist very often?
MS. HOUCHIN: My dentist was in Clinton.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How long did you live in Oak Ridge, I know you don't live there now but --
MS. HOUCHIN: I left Oak Ridge because my mother was ill and my grandmother had passed away and she was living alone still at home and I was the only child. So she didn't have to be -- and friends just all jumped in and took all my junk and moved me into Knoxville with her and [inaudible] the Lord is just most merciful because she had captured a cold and gangrene had -- she took so many chemo therapy and I will have to say Dr. Grossman he really needs her chemo. She did outlive what the doctor's even thought, and she wasn't really strong but she was able to be at home and I didn't have to give up my job early. I got to go on and work and --
MR. HUNNICUTT: What was the last place that you worked, who did you retire from?
MS. HOUCHIN: [inaudible] but I don't know what to call all those letters. I just stayed of August of we met 20 years.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now you have a little around your neck [crosstalk]. Tell me about that?
MS. HOUCHIN: Somebody made that for me with the [inaudible]
MR. HUNNICUTT: How long have you had that?
MS. HOUCHIN: Ever since back in the early ‘50's I guess.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Let me take a look at that. That's quite unique.
MS. HOUCHIN: Yeah. They were few made that was solid platinum stainless but I like mine because you put [inaudible] it was real cute.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What's the most amazing thing you seen in your life?
MS. HOUCHIN: Oh, gosh. I don't know right now, if I could ask earlier I have to think. I couldn't thought of something.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about going to the moon or the Internet today?
MS. HOUCHIN: Well I'm such an antique, I don't have that Internet. I don't even know what it is.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you enjoy living in Oak Ridge?
MS. HOUCHIN: Yeah I did.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So if you had a few words to describe Oak Ridge in early days and all the time you live here how would you describe it?
MS. HOUCHIN: Well, there's a lot of hustle on the bus but like I said people were really, really good back then, you didn't hear anybody cursing out or fighting or shooting or stabbing somebody in the back. Everybody you know just like I tried to [inaudible] a while ago. Most of that I ever saw was men just having a beer which they won't bothering anybody and you know just a little beer before they went home and you didn't hear any word of slang or nothing. I did have a guy that call me a long haired bitch one night on my job and I turned to this girl and I said "What's a bitch?" I mean I really didn't even know. She went over to the table to Tony Osborne which one of our playing and she said -- she was cute and she was just little [inaudible]. She stood up and it was really nice. She said "Tony, what do you do when somebody calls you a long haired bitch?" And he said "Did somebody called you?" And she slang about three or four words, I mean she's mad she put that bag and her little short dress and bony legs. Anyway she made it a point is a good thing to do. Really I hated it; I had never gotten over it. He comes through the line we had three drivers that have had a little [nip?] at night and that -- is really good I mean they didn't automatically fire nobody or nothing you know what I mean they just smack their hand. Anyway he said something I don't remember -- it [inaudible] and I just -- I said "I came here like how's your mom." Or just something simple you know that's when -- he just give me -- he had just enough to be smart as our guess, that's when he say "You long haired bitch." I thought what I don't deserved that but he hadn't been what it was either but I knew it wasn't nice. Anyway, they come and go and I just begged him I just nearly cried, I didn't bother him. We both had to go to guard headquarters. My first night on our shift so later somebody told me I said "Please leave that man alone." And I said "I didn't mean nothing." I said "He just took it wrong or something." And I said "He might lose his job and I know he’s got children and I just can't stand it." Later about 2:30 in the morning they informed me they fired him and I nearly cried. They said "You hold up one minute it's not your fault." said the captain up there "Was really been nice to him, as a matter of fact he already told one guy he wanted to cut him to take him home." I guess that time the booze was working on him a little more I guess I don't know. They said he got kind of smart with the captain and the captain just probably picked up the phone call K-25, told him to give him a temporarily phased out, pick up his badge, make out any check of any amount of money. And I just never get over it. I'm just really sorry when it comes to children. Then we had a girl was working down eating -- baby cafeteria number 2 down towards the East Gate and we had a small cup of coffee for a nickel and we had those army mugs, they were nice. He said "I'll give you a nickel." she said "If you get that cup of coffee you go give me a dime." They got, she just kind of help, well she ended up in the guard quarters, our boss come in the next morning he said I want to know what happen that all my cashiers ended up in the guards quarters and so anyway he just wanted to get him, she just want to have it if she didn't pay for. So we had those two little episodes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Is there anything we hadn't talked about that you'd like to talk about?
MS. HOUCHIN: Right off I wish today was like it was back then. I've lost a lot of good friends.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Well it's been my pleasure to interview you and I believed your all interview would be a tribute to the history of Oak Ridge.
MS. HOUCHIN: Well, I hope --
MR. HUNNICUTT: I think that is something personal.
MS. HOUCHIN: I probably [inaudible]
MR. HUNNICUTT: I think that some person or young person or anyone that would like to know our history, yours would be part of it. I mean it's very interesting to know --
MS. HOUCHIN: You know that's why I've been a little bit ugly about tearing everything down. They think young people don't care. You wouldn't believe, I've got 10 or 12 Oak Ridge books and they just can't believe they were that many trailers and it's very educational to them you know and I was so glad that somebody donated the flattops in the museum and has some of the original furniture. I think it's wonderful.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Yes, it is. Where you ever in one of the trailers?
MS. HOUCHIN: Yeah.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me briefly about what it looked like inside a trailer.
MS. HOUCHIN: Well it's been too long I don't know if I could remember anything but we have one good friend I call him Paul and we go run by there it was in Middletown. They lived very comfortable they didn't seem to have no problem, they were small but you know it's --
MR. HUNNICUTT: One person described it like being going out on a camping trip now a days you know, you have a trailer and you went camping.
MS. HOUCHIN: I hadn't talk about it like that but I guess it kind of would in a way.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You mentioned Middletown. Is that where the Civic Center sits today, is that what you're calling Middletown in that area down in there by the turn.
MS. HOUCHIN: It's further down all the way up.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Well I thank you very much for coming out and letting us interview you.
MS. HOUCHIN: Well, one thing that I didn't tell you probably you know but it was amazing to everybody and my friend in Alabama she's dead now but always if you ever saw a line -- somewhere a line here [inaudible] and she like about it and one day to call to Ridge women and you know [inaudible] back to them it was money in the bank for you. She said "They went flying up through there to get mine [inaudible] but you mind getting in the line you didn't know what to have but you just we've been out a little awhile I couldn't get it so get to the line anyway.
MR. HUNNICUTT: I'm sure that a lot of the conversation took place on those lines isn't it.
MS. HOUCHIN: Oh yeah.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You met new friends, forgot to know something.
MS. HOUCHIN: That's the truth. We had some stories but a lot of times it was like heaven on earth if women got to go to Chattanooga and once in a while then they go to-- bunch would go to Chattanooga and I was walking at the street one day with somebody and he later turn -- you don't even know your name. He had holler at me three times [inaudible] in Oak Ridge you know.
MR. HUNNICUTT: He recognized you in Chattanooga?
MS. HOUCHIN: Uh huh.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Is there anything else you want to recall.
MS. HOUCHIN: Well, they did have some pretty things down there so I kept up with a lot of -- as far as I know I'm the only one left. At one time we had 75 cashiers and when the car -- you know didn't wish to -- East [inaudible] and my best friend live in Alabama and of course there may be a few that you know that I didn't be able to keep up with but to my knowledge I sat I was thank of everybody that worked all the cafeteria lines and not one left and one of them died recently their son and she was 98. She used to work at here in Oak Ridge.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What was her name?
MS. HOUCHIN: [inaudible] Goodman. Her husband was one of our bakers at Y-12. We had two of the best baker we've been ever had.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Those were good times.
MS. HOUCHIN: That's right, they really were, they sure were.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Well thank you very much for coming and giving you an interview.
MS. HOUCHIN: Nice meeting you.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Nice meeting you.
[End of Interview]

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ORAL HISTORY OF EVELYN HOUCHIN
Interviewed by Don Hunnicutt
Filmed by BBB Communications, LLC.
September 6, 2013
MR. HUNNICUTT: This interview is for the Center of Oak Ridge Oral History. The day is September 6th, 2013. I am Don Hunnicutt in the Studio of BBB Communications, LLC., 170 Robertsville Road, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, to take an oral history from Evelyn Houchin about living in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Evelyn, please state your full name, place of birth and date.
MS. HOUCHIN: Evelyn Tucker Houchin. October 26, 1926.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And where were you born?
MS. HOUCHIN: Knoxville.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What was your father's name?
MS. HOUCHIN: Floyd Tucker.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And do you recall where his place of birth was?
MS. HOUCHIN: No.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What was your mother's maiden name?
MS. HOUCHIN: Rolen.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And do you recall where her place of birth was?
MS. HOUCHIN: It was in Knoxville but probably out in the rural section, somewhere I do not know.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about your grandfather's name -- your mother and father side?
MS. HOUCHIN: My mother's father was George Rolen and my dad's name was John Tucker.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about your -- on your other side of the your family, your other grandparents?
MS. HOUCHIN: I just don't remember that.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Okay. What about your father, do you remember about his school history?
MS. HOUCHIN: Back then he didn't get to go to school but they didn't get to go much. I think he just went to about the 4th grade.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about your mother's school?
MS. HOUCHIN: I don't know anything much about my mother other than she did say a few times that when the crops was in, that her daddy would even keep the girls out of school that they would help.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You have sisters and brothers?
MS. HOUCHIN: No.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What kind of work did your father do?
MS. HOUCHIN: He worked at [Candor?] Marble Mill for a little while and then he worked for [Kettners?] Dry Cleaners back when they deliver their cleaning at the home, you know.
MR. HUNNICUTT: He was a delivery person for the dry cleaners?
MS. HOUCHIN: Yeah, for [Kettners?].
MR. HUNNICUTT: And the [Kettners?] was located in Knoxville?
MS. HOUCHIN: Yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about your mother, did she work?
MS. HOUCHIN: [Appalachian?] Mill.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And what was her job?
MS. HOUCHIN: She opened fronts of the long underware like the service men wore, you know. And then a while she worked at William's Sandwich Shop up in the Market House.
MR. HUNNICUTT: That's the Old Market House up in the Square in Knoxville?
MS. HOUCHIN: Yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did your parents come to Oak Ridge or did you just come out here yourself. Give me a little history about that.
MS. HOUCHIN: Well I was a cashier at a store in Tennessee, big people to come for employment office on Union Avenue and so I went up there and I they saw what they've done and recall they would take me right then but me being young, my mother had to go sign for me and -- but I got on to Tennessee right away.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Well let me back you up minute. What schools did you attend in Knoxville, is that where you grew up? What part of Knoxville did you grow up in?
MS. HOUCHIN: Park City.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And that's located next to where?
MS. HOUCHIN: It's going a little bit like towards Burlington in Park City. Larry's School on Linden Avenue.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And did you graduate from which school in Knoxville?
MS. HOUCHIN: I went to grammar school and middle school for a while and I went Tyson Junior, down on Kingston Pike and the middle school which is called junior high. When I went -- stay for a little while and then when I went back I went to Stairtech in Knoxville. Up there it was just a brick building by Old City Hall.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And was that a specialized school?
MS. HOUCHIN: It's a technical school.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And what did you do there, what was your subject?
MS. HOUCHIN: Well mainly typing and distribution of education.
MR. HUNNICUTT: When you were going to school what was the dress like on those days for a girl going to school?
MS. HOUCHIN: Well, seem like just mostly little dresses and kinda. Once in awhile maybe you might see a pair of slacks but it wasn't all in blue jeans back then.
MS. HOUCHIN: Was your family -- would you say your family was poor or middle class or how would you rate your family?
MS. HOUCHIN: My mother and daddy had a really hard time. My daddy died when I was seven and my mother wasn't very strong and my aunt told us said "Well, we could make our home with her if we'd like." And I don't know what we would done. Had she offered us a home.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And where was that located?
MS. HOUCHIN: They lived on the East Clinton Avenue for a long time and then later moved on over on Forest Avenue when I was going to Tyson.
MR. HUNNICUTT: When you went to school did you walk to school or did you ride the bus, how did you get there?
MS. HOUCHIN: Just when it rain once in a while because we lived on Forest and Tyson was way down on Kingston Park. I was only seven when my daddy died and my mother was only 29.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You mentioned that you working as a cashier and the people from Tennessee Eastman came in and saw what you were doing and ask you if you wanted to come out here for employment.
MS. HOUCHIN: No. They had a -- they had a little ad in the paper of just a temporary replacement to come to up in Union Avenue and I went up there.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How old were you then?
MS. HOUCHIN: I was about 17 and they thought I was 18.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And you mentioned earlier that your mother had to give information for you to come out here to work?
MS. HOUCHIN: Yeah, back then they did. I mean not only out there but if -- you know that was back then the state, we all have to had parents signatures if you were a teenager.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me what you remember when you came out here for employment.
MS. HOUCHIN: Well, I was -- they brought us from Knoxville [inaudible] they're hard up to the C building in a bus and brought us over to the plant. Then that way they could get us in.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Which plant was it?
MS. HOUCHIN: Y-12
MR. HUNNICUTT: So you came from Knoxville on a bus. They took you to the AEC [Atomic Energy Commission] Administration building, from there you went to Y-12?
MS. HOUCHIN: They took us on a bus from there over to Y-12.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And so when you get to Y-12, what happen then?
MS. HOUCHIN: Well they interviewed me in the cashier's office and my boss there was a Rommie Stall and he was a German. Then Bill Quinman was over the cashier's office and I was on three to 11 just for a little while. He came to me one day and told me he said "I hate to tell you but I'm going to have to put you on night shift for about a couple of weeks." So they did and I had a friend that went to Sterchi’s and she'd been begging me to come up there and I said "I'd be the dumbest one in the class. Only you know if I make it you can."
So, I went up there and I thought well I'm off this week you know I mean chase around I'll go. So what I saw was done really well and I really liked it and I told Mother she said "You will never go back to quit." I said "We all go back." So in that then I started to school, went back to my boss then again and asked him could he put me up in the shift regular because I started to school and then they even let me leave early in order to catch the bus up there to come on to Knoxville.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Let me back you up a minute. Tell me how your shift is?
MS. HOUCHIN: Going at 11 at night, I work all night long until seven in the morning.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So where did you catch the bus to go back to Knoxville, do you live with your mother still in Knoxville at the time?
MS. HOUCHIN: Uh huh.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So where did you catch the bus to go back to Knoxville?
MS. HOUCHIN: It came back by the portals. It was still coming around by the portals. When the bus is back then they just lined up and it just filled up really rapidly with people, you know.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So, how did you know which bus to get on?
MS. HOUCHIN: Well, I mean you just got to an Army colored bus is I knew which one that you needed to go on.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you have a number or was something about the windshield, a marked key that illustrated where the bus went?
MS. HOUCHIN: I can't remember. Everybody just seemed to know you know.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So when you left Y-12 and the bus you went over to the Central Bus Station there or where did you go?
MS. HOUCHIN: It depend a lot of times because we stayed a lot of time on evening shift 30 minutes due to the fact that it would go over and pick up the Roane Anderson guards over by the Central Station and they got off a little earlier in there, but back then we went. When I was on our shift I would get off on Western Avenue about ten minutes to one in the morning.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So how long was you on this shift?
MS. HOUCHIN: Well I stayed down at until about four to six I guess, I got to cut in few half and then they put me then on days and I know I was pretty good if do sound rich and I know Mr. Martin told Mr. Stalls where in the world have you headed and that is when I put back on day shift because I won't go through up there.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What was your job duties? You mentioned register, tell me what that mean.
MS. HOUCHIN: Work in the cash register and we had a schedule. At one time we had 75 cashiers and we [inaudible] and see what register number we were going to. At one point what building it was the register where you -- you know where to go. So I was cashier.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now this is for the cafeterias, the eating facility?
MS. HOUCHIN: Yeah, we got a lot of people too. And we needed really go through there because I tried to. On top of that we had to check the trays, not like now the automation stuff. We had to count it on our head and create individual, their plate or their pie or salad or whatever and then they paid us plus the fact then we had to make the change for them.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember about how much a lunch or dinner meal would cost?
MS. HOUCHIN: No, because things are so inexpensive, you know back then when they like now. In fact I had one man I shall never forget him. He held up my line sometimes because pie was ten cents a slice and strawberry short cake when they are in season they were 15. So he stood there and he picked up the strawberry pie and the cake and look at it and he set it back and he pick it up two or three times and all of the matter of nickel. I'm sure that he ended up taking it. So that's the way it was and it's not like now, you know, and I have to always compliment, we had one of the best chefs that ever hit this town and we had the very best cook. He was retired chef out of the Navy.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What time did your shift start as far as serving people?
MS. HOUCHIN: The cafeteria -- the line itself, they had like 7:00 to 8:30 for breakfast shortly or something. But then lunch they started about 10:30 to 11:00.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Then did they serve evening meal as well?
MS. HOUCHIN: No.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Just breakfast and lunch?
MS. HOUCHIN: Well they had canteens and things and then -- that was the main cafeteria. We had other cafeteens and canteens from East gate all the way to the extension.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You said cafeteens. What's that mean?
MS. HOUCHIN: Well it was kind of -- it was more like a canteen but little bit more formal with a little bit more to choose from.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now that canteens were just machines you put money and get food out of, is that -- no?
MS. HOUCHIN: No.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What was the canteen like back then?
MS. HOUCHIN: Sorry, we had a grill and they got hamburgers or hotdogs and we had a soup you know and short orders sort of but hot nourishing food.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where was the main cafeteria located in Y-12, do you remember?
MS. HOUCHIN: Well when it started out it was considered as one. When you go in the North Gate straight down the hill and years, years later they build a bigger cafeteria at what they called 9704-5. We had let's say two or four , six -- about eight or ten registers on each side. It was long and somewhat go. Say some of the people worked in other areas, they didn't have time to come down there and that's why they had a choice and pretty nice smaller places to go somewhere else throughout the area.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall how much time people were allotted for eating breakfast or lunch?
MS. HOUCHIN: Well, they said about 30 minutes but they weren't overly strict at it they need roughly the bus -- they didn't really take advantage of them too much.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Were the canteens kind of spread out throughout the plant so that the travel time was real short to get to it?
MS. HOUCHIN: Yeah. They had a lot of choice, I mean like I said all the way to East Portal down at the very east end of the area all the way down into the extension. Going down one of them as a matter of fact we saw tickets and bus wants because it wasn't quite finished and but they had the best hot ham sandwiches you ever put in your mouth.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What do you remember about Bill and Jenny Wilcox at the Cafeteria?
MS. HOUCHIN: Well, she was always smiling and she wasn't -- real thin but -- I mean one real petit but she's really heavy and she had beautiful red hair and she smiled all the time and they were very pretty. I was proud of all of my customers.
MR. HUNNICUTT: They pretty much knew you by name going through your line so much.
MS. HOUCHIN: Yeah. I call it visiting, then one time way later long time -- when I worked later there over in the -- later I went over to X-10 when they called them like if I could come back to work and coming there one day and said "I just don't understand why you never hadn't gotten married." And I said "Well I am just like this, they call this smothering kind and I'm the motherly so I'll be smothering." That -- that travel from one end to that area to other in five minutes. So I would be a mother for friends, black and white.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You had mentioned you have a nickname named Thes. How did you acquire that?
MS. HOUCHIN: Well, that was just a story back when I went Young High School.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did most people know you by Thes?
MS. HOUCHIN: Yeah, a lot of them call me Thes, as a matter of fact I started to tell you a while ago when I was going home one day, we didn't have any Central portal back then, you had to walk all the way from down at -5 back up to the North Gate. A guy caught me with his safety hat on and wanted to know who Thes was, I said "Me. They call me Thes." He said what do you mean putting your name in my new laid concrete sidewalk and it was nice because it's double wide big and I said "Sir I didn't put my name in it." He said "It's up right there." I said. "Well I'm just going home one day and I told those guys they were working so hard if they wanted that to pass just to put Thes on it and I said I'm just acting crazy." I said "I was really surprised when they took the two sacks and I saw they smoothed the place it about so it was smooth and printed it really big. He used a little word of slang and he said -- down those steps he went he said "They probably get it all with plus the extension." We had a lot of laughs--
MR. HUNNICUTT: Which sidewalk was that?
MS. HOUCHIN: It was -- they later build, for a while we walked in the mud and then for a while from up there -- coming around the main building to get to the big cafeteria where we later, where they put this concrete sidewalk -- really nice concrete sidewalk and that laid pretty much all the way from North all the way down to the West.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was your name still on the sidewalk when you retired?
MS. HOUCHIN: Yeah and I thought to bring the plaque and I thought if you want to see pictures or not, and so I told [inaudible] you know go there one more time. So at my party he didn't say a word about going over there he went over there, he went over and made a picture of it. At my party he came to that plaque where my name was. It was kind of a little bit rough but it was legible from where it was in the sidewalk.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How many years did you work at the plant?
MS. HOUCHIN: Over at Y-12 I was there 15 ½ years and then back then in the meantime earlier I got married and later I got pregnant and they didn't let the early woman come back. So I didn't get to go back but weekly, monthly they got to come back but we didn't.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember how much your salary was? How much your money?
MS. HOUCHIN: I know by then putting down voluntarily quitting I could have -- they got to beg me to let this lawyer take it so they have been glad to give you back that five years and I said "No, I've got one of my other things back at the federal government passed on." I don’t want to be fussing. And I said "I don't want to be personal." I know one thing during the war, they were hiring them so fast that I had to work three months to get a nickel raised. Two friends I met -- two sisters they come in and made, I was working really hard to get that nickel day came in, they already set that up to 75 cents an hour.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So when you first went to work out there did they give you any kind of orientation about what to say or not to say?
MS. HOUCHIN: Oh yeah.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me about that.
MS. HOUCHIN: They warned us every day to keep our mouth shut of anything. You know if we saw or we thought we saw it just to not to say anything.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you ever hear anybody talking about anything going on?
MS. HOUCHIN: No. I really didn't, it's -- what I said everybody just had a good time and there's a lot of things that happened, back then was open until midnight. The skating rink was open 'till 2:30 in the morning at which sometimes I did skate till then. Then a lot to be able to, the people that worked like 4:00 to 12:00, or the second shift to be able to go to the show. They’d have a movie starting at 11:30, so people second shift could go to a movie. They had -- I mean you know it's just that time you didn't pay attention to it much.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you have any idea what was going on?
MS. HOUCHIN: No, I didn't.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How long did you live with your mother. Did you come out to Oak Ridge to live later on?
MS. HOUCHIN: Yeah. I had several friends and I got involved in a league and got to be playing softball for the company and I didn't have a car back then and just one boy I dated on vacation and he take me out down home and -- I stayed up all night a lot. In fact one of my best friends, she said "That's your room in there." And I had a key to her room and everything and I didn't have to worry then about, you know, going back home. My mother and my grandmother lived together and I went home a lot on weekends and sometimes if I have a ride with somebody. One guy later let me drive his car sometime and I told Mother, one man tried to choke me on my front porch, and I told her I said "When the time is starts to get dark again." I used to run to catch to work bus in front of our house hustling [inaudible] around depot and come around that when I knew the bus would come. I said "The time it starts getting dark." -- We lived on Forest Avenue then it was considered one of the shadiest streets in Knoxville. I said "I'm going to have a place out there where I don't have to be coming home." So I did, that's later when I moved in Tabor Hall.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Why did the man choked you?
MS. HOUCHIN: Well, I don't know whether he was after my purse. Sheriff the chief of that town thought -- he intended maybe to put his hand over my mouth and another one around me and drive me way about a hundred between those houses. It looked like he tried like he tied me with an old and dirty silky looking piece of a bed spread that my mother said she saw out of the garbage next door. But I followed him and I butt my head back and forth and it made it sound like taxi cabs coming around the corner because people raised their windows back then. I said "I know who he was." But I go to arrest the man and I took that finger and went back. I made it even at the back of his hand and I could pull it kind of away hit on the brown or gloves. So when I fell -- [inaudible] my purse and I went straight on the school. The guy is taking [inaudible] it bounces on the step and he just jumped down off the porch. My grandmother finally hears "That sounds like her screaming." And he came back and picked up that purse. I wound up on 15 Street and after a while our paperboy went that way and he said he comes sliding out like roller ball in his feet. The police came we had call [inaudible]. Mother said he could just have killed me -- there she was [inaudible] and I said "Oh, my pictures -- on the pictures he’s on it." So I believe it was a black fellow I've had seen earlier when really studying coming up from Grand Avenue way.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So that's when you decided you wanted a home in Oak Ridge?
MS. HOUCHIN: Well that's when I did moved in a dormitory.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And where was the dormitory located?
MS. HOUCHIN: Right up there at the-- what they called that Town Side.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Going Central Avenue across in the Cafeteria.
MS. HOUCHIN: Across in front of the cafeteria.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me about the dormitory room. Describe it for me.
MS. HOUCHIN: Well it was small and of course later I got a double and it was nice and I know when it's cold weather some of us [inaudible] a small can of milk in the winter and later we got some small refrigerator. The other thing about Oak Ridge everybody was so close and somebody gone to Knoxville, somebody else gone here very young we wait [inaudible] at Central Cafeteria before we go home. If you're going to find somebody, just hunt him, just go to the cafeteria because they come by.
MR. HUNNICUTT: This was a women's only dormitory, is that right?
MS. HOUCHIN: Oh, no. I don't know -- [inaudible] dormitory it showed at one time.
MR. HUNNICUTT: But where you're staying it was just for women only?
MS. HOUCHIN: Yeah. They don't have no mix men or women or mix.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So, did you have a roommate or were you in the room by yourself?
MS. HOUCHIN: I was in the room myself until later October. My friend of mine that came because he came to work I said "You just come back and sleep a few more hours in my room, there's no need for you to rent a room up there."
MR. HUNNICUTT: So you had a bed and what else was in the room?
MS. HOUCHIN: We had a bed and one of the best bed, I wish I had bought one. I got me what we call a desk and the wood is solid. We had a bed and we had that table with the mirror and a really nice chair and a really nice bath tub, and about a five drawer chest and the doors are really good.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about the bathroom facilities? Tell me about that in the dormitory.
MS. HOUCHIN: Well we had -- just a little piece around from my room but down a couple of steps there's the shower and they were two or three showers and we had one space that had several basins because I know one girl liked that because it's nylon hose at that time I went down to the sink that day and I thought she's going to be buried and it was really nice and several tools and that was -- in each end plus upstairs. It had a really nice lounge upstairs too.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was there an area in dormitory where you first came in like a reception area. Is that where you would get your messages or see if you have any.
MS. HOUCHIN: Yeah. Our mails-- our mailing system was kept there and she put our -- we had a number, you know, like I live in 139, that would go in the pigeon hole. Then if some of the girls their date was going to come they just go to the desk and that's where they get telephones and they would page them you know or whoever they had come to see.
MR. HUNNICUTT: They had a PA system in the dormitory?
MS. HOUCHIN: I can't remember how she got it but anyway the -- a lot of time they knew they were coming. The men weren't allowed back in the women's dorm. Now they're in the front lobby, they had two or three couches and come for me and sat on the floor against the wall right across from the desk clerk and talk to her.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you eat very much in the Cafeteria across the street?
MS. HOUCHIN: Well, occasionally, I mean you know if you wanted a salad or pie if you had maybe had to work or something you know they had about [inaudible] and good food.
MR. HUNNICUTT: When you were working out at Y-12, will they allow you to eat?
MS. HOUCHIN: Oh yeah --
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you have to pay for it? It's free for the employees. So after that you probably didn't want much to eat at the time you got home. You're ready to go to bed and sleep to the next time you went to work.
MS. HOUCHIN: Take a piece of pie home with you if you wanted.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So if you wanted to find someone you just went over at the Cafeteria and sit there 'cause most people would wander around there.
MS. HOUCHIN: They come by. One time at ten if they had a chance or gas to go to Knoxville and they would come back by and have the time to have a cup of coffee and probably another hour or something or talk.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You mentioned something about the Cafeteria fire. Did they have fire in the Cafeteria?
MS. HOUCHIN: That fire -- Central Cafeteria caught on fire way after --
MR. HUNNICUTT: Many years later.
MS. HOUCHIN: Yeah.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Yes it did. So what did you do for fun when you live in Oak Ridge during those days.
MS. HOUCHIN: Well we had a variety of boyfriends and we skated and we bowled on a league and we had a softball team later back when we went to Memphis. One year they took us ten hours on the road by bus that we won and I got the softball in my cedar chest now.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What was the name of the team?
MS. HOUCHIN: Well I can't come up with our bowling team and I can't remember right of top of my head what a softball was but that slow pokey bus you know one with [inaudible] buses.
MR. HUNNICUTT: They didn't have installed either?
MS. HOUCHIN: No, that's right. The ten hours is slow but we had a got a good time.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where was this skating rink located?
MS. HOUCHIN: At [inaudible] down at Jefferson, right across from -- is that Vermont Shell -- no that's not Vermont. Right down there is where bike shop is now, down the hill a little bit.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Across from where the cafeteria was on Jefferson on early days.
MS. HOUCHIN: The cafeteria was back on over. As a matter of fact the skating rink didn't have a restaurant and you had to pull your skates off if you needed a restroom and walk over to the cafeteria and I know years later they had him to put it in, he says, the public place but it was nothing just a stall or they have to put in a restaurant.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Well describe to me what the skating rink look like.
MS. HOUCHIN: Well it was a very large, as a matter of fact I had skated quite a bit at Chilhowie Park in Knoxville and did aerobics, you put your leg up to your nose. As I was going backwards down there one day and had to look up and just about struggling that middle post in that stand. But I was used to that, you know, you could go out and around -- there for a while you would pay and you'll get a number and then when your time was up they call that number out. If they called your number you had to get out the floor because others are waiting to get in or you could repay if you want to stay again and they would put the signs up and a lot of people would come and stand around the sides and watch you skate. From outside it's lower that they could stand there.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So they had some kind of swing out windows they open up so people outside can look in.
MS. HOUCHIN: Uh huh.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What type of floor was in the skating rink?
MS. HOUCHIN: It was wood. It was -- not that big but it was real good I mean for us anybody have --
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did they have music?
MS. HOUCHIN: Oh yeah. For a while Doug Mara played that organ down there and his little girls. One of those pictures that I have brought in that envelop, and of course when they -- when they made Oak Ridge an open city on the March the 19th we skated on the float.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Yeah. We’ll get to that in a minute after that. I know about that. So how much did it cost to skate?
MS. HOUCHIN: Seem like -- you know I just don't remember. I remember a fellow that worked over -- where he had about four children and of course he didn't bring one, he didn't bring all his children you know. And I can't remember if it was 50 cents for that length of time.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Would that be skate rental to or did you have to rent skates or --
MS. HOUCHIN: I had my own of skates. In fact I give [inaudible] that one time for one of favorite skates.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You gave a what?
MS. HOUCHIN: Shoes for a [inaudible] boots they were leather so we had to use shoe shine.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So you mentioned you skated at Chilhowie Park, did you start skating at the young age?
MS. HOUCHIN: I learned to skate on the sidewalk. But I lived on Jefferson when I was in grade school and my mother bought me a little pair of roller skates for Christmas and I wore them all the time climbing [inaudible].
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall the skates you used to have that you clamped on to your shoes.
MS. HOUCHIN: Yeah, I have that.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember any weddings at the skating rink that took place?
MS. HOUCHIN: No, I know they had one or two but I wasn't really acquainted with them. But I remember their talking about someone getting married on skates.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you -- were you acquainted with Betty and Bert and Virgil Johnson?
MS. HOUCHIN: Yeah, I know Virgil Johnson, he bowled didn't he?
MR. HUNNICUTT: Yes and they both skated back on those days.
MS. HOUCHIN: I might have to -- I tell you what I did every morning going to that area to [inaudible] and I tried to connect as many names with many badges as I could. I learned a lot. With a lot of people you just talk to them just really well. But I never didn't know that I'm going to introduce him and say "I'm sorry you have to tell me your name." Somebody one time that the way he is talking I thought that was somebody your family you didn't even know.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember what's your badge number was?
MS. HOUCHIN: Yeah, I have 18782 and then I had a 15575.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now if you took your badge home with you and you happen to forget it what happen then?
MS. HOUCHIN: We had to go down to the [inaudible] and they gave us a tie to get in.
MR. HUNNICUTT: If you lost your badge what would happen?
MS. HOUCHIN: Well they just later have to make us another one. I lost one day up there and it come [inaudible] I'm clumsy.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where did you do your bowling?
MS. HOUCHIN: We did -- we had bowling at the Central which was underneath kinda up there, it was kind of steps to the 10Z Cafeteria. Then we bowled sometimes down there an hour after it was build and then seem like we bowled at one of the others too. I would bowl but one night a week. I had bowled at least seven for somebody from one night but I did try two or three nights bowling.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you recall how much it cost to bowl?
MS. HOUCHIN: Seems like about a dollar or a dollar and a quarter unless you have a sponsor or of the team. We weren't sponsored. In fact that's kind of when I kind of give it up. Later I'm married and then I take my son with me and of course all the girls they handle him, you know, and everything and he tried so hard to stay awake and I said "I'm not going to punished him like that anymore." I have to get up really early to go to work to myself and he loves to ride around so what little bit I pay and let me be my outlet. What little I pay through you knows us to going -- I'll just say that for gas and take him to the drive-in or something.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember your highest bowling score?
MS. HOUCHIN: Well I know I had a 202 one time and then I know I had a the guy calls it -- it's unusual to bowl the same score and I had 395 one night and I got it's kind of --
MR. HUNNICUTT: A triple award?
MS. HOUCHIN: Uh huh.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How many people were on the bowling team?
MS. HOUCHIN: I think there were five.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember who they were?
MS. HOUCHIN: Well I bowled with different girls but Katherine Hopkins was on our team and most -- and Roselle Kennedy and I can't remember [inaudible] with our team -- the actual team.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How many lanes was Central Bowling alley at that time?
MS. HOUCHIN: They could have used more.
MR. HUNNICUTT: There was a small bowling alley wasn't it?
MS. HOUCHIN: Well that was about as large anywhere around rather than Central. I mean, well, you had to run up to go get something to drink, you know back at the counter if you wanted to. Terrace we bowled at Terrace quite a bit too.
MR. HUNNICUTT: It was that Old Terrace was that Premiere Alley in the Oak Ridge.
MS. HOUCHIN: That was where they had the dancing -- that Francis Craig the orchestra there -- dancing you know and it was one of the better alleys to bowl on.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So where did you go when you go on a dates, what did you do?
MS. HOUCHIN: Well we had a -- we had a drive-in and we had through the you know [inaudible] too. Then once in a while if anybody had extra gas they pile a car full or we take advantages and then maybe go to Knoxville or something or over to Clinton.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you have any problems getting a date?
MS. HOUCHIN: No. We really didn't.
MR. HUNNICUTT: There was quite a bit more young women than there men?
MS. HOUCHIN: Well we had quite a lot, we had a quite lot of men, of course, women too but -- and a lot of times just big guys and just had a really good time. I will tell you that -- we got a lot of things as cashier you couldn't buy outside. We had big chocolate candy bars about that big. Fifty cents. I never did smoke. Later it got a little hard their getting cigarettes over there. Then so once or twice that they got a little extra gas because they lived -- you know kind of a little bit further away and that give them a little more gas [inaudible] paycheck on globe. So they nearly knocked me down it got around every two weeks it knocked me down, I said "Don't you forget send me your cigarette envelop." So lot of my -- I will swap a cigarette envelop for a guy’s envelop and that gave me boys more gas going around.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me about going in and out through the gates of Oak Ridge.
MS. HOUCHIN: Well we didn't have any problems other than I was scared to death they would stop me and I didn't get no driver's license, and Edgemore had been condemned and they put to the force and you had to stay down and cross either you get off that would be too bad. My mother told me one day she said "If you're going to drive, go get your license." I had always had straight shift and I was scared to drive here, you know, and we had no problem there.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You said Edgemore Bridge.
MS. HOUCHIN: Uh huh.
MR. HUNNICUTT: That was a single lane bridge, wasn't it?
MS. HOUCHIN: Yeah.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So, did you have any problem with being on the bridge when someone else is coming in the other way?
MS. HOUCHIN: No, we just waited if we did but I worried about me crossing [inaudible] because I would be driving home with somebody's car is but I made it all right.
MR. HUNNICUTT: It wasn't your car, it was someone else's?
MS. HOUCHIN: Uh huh. I didn't have a car until about ‘53.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So, when you came through the gate what did they do at the gate?
MS. HOUCHIN: Well they just spoke and a lot of time look at your badge and if they bring down that something and which they hardly ever did you know. Then time or two different friends before I moved out here got me a pass it would be at the gate waiting for me before I could get on then.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What gate was that when you had the pass?
MS. HOUCHIN: Elza.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And would they meet you at the gate?
MS. HOUCHIN: Yeah. They knew I was coming and then I had a pass waiting on me.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did that restrict you from staying on any length of time with that pass?
MS. HOUCHIN: [inaudible]
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, when you get a pass at Elza did they had a badge for you at that time?
MS. HOUCHIN: It is tie. It was just a tie.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Were you supposed to wear that the whole time you were in Oak Ridge.
MS. HOUCHIN: Yeah.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me about did you attend any dances on the tennis courts?
MS. HOUCHIN: If I did it, it was maybe more but I went sometimes for friends -- with friends on the tennis court but I've been to that at Jefferson and over at the Terrace. We had some good time.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was that a free dance or did you have to pay?
MS. HOUCHIN: Well, one time Jefferson -- I don't remember we paid anything but just a lot of times in fact we commented that one guy that came all the time and they were offering to buy me a coke or pay a little bit and then they wanted him to say that he get lunch and go lunch with everybody else's date.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So how do you travel back and forth to the Oak Ridge?
MS. HOUCHIN: Well we had area buses. In fact I’ve still got one token that I have and if you live long time you just run so you wouldn't missed it and get on the bus. They were everywhere.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So you had a token. Where did you get the tokens?
MS. HOUCHIN: I can't remember where we get those little tokens.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did they have transfers too on the bus so if you got off one and you get another one, you get a transfer.
MS. HOUCHIN: It seems like later -- same transfer. I never did I have no reason to have transfer.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So the atmosphere sounds like it was just a great big good time with a lot of young people?
MS. HOUCHIN: We did, we had a good time. I give anything people of today [crosstalk] --
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you feel safe and those days?
MS. HOUCHIN: Heavens, yes. I walked down and turned back more times than on the bus just come to the Central. You know if we skated long and I walk [inaudible].
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you ever have to use the hospital?
MS. HOUCHIN: No, I don't believe I did. We had a really good medical, it was better than lot of the hospital. I don't remember ever going to the hospital.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What do you remember about door to door salesman in Oak Ridge. Do you remember anything about that? What about whiskey, beer?
MS. HOUCHIN: I learn how to smell a beer without vomiting and a boy I dated he's bad and we've been around here at the Central bowling alley and over here was a counter the men would go up buy a beer and sit on our table and their minding their own business, I always had admired them, they get out work 12 hours and just come in and leisurely have a beer before they went home. So we are coming home one night and [inaudible] he saw me turning green and he just give me a shove and I hit the fresh air just in time and the way I learned to do around that is people calling me dancing and had drink a beer and you could smell it little and I got from that I could take the smell or something.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you have any of your friends try to smuggle in whiskey from outside?
MS. HOUCHIN: I know some of the women and that went to I believe it was Oakdale or somewhere and they have to lie about it of going up there getting some booze or something and they hide the bottle underneath the baby's crib blanket in the car and they just most of them are there.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What do you remember or where were you when you hear about them dropping the bomb on Japan?
MS. HOUCHIN: I was at the Chilhowie Skating Rink fixing my skate when they announced it loudly.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What do you think about that?
MS. HOUCHIN: I just -- it was unreal because I had an uncle that was just like a brother if I could ever had one and he was on that USS Arizona and he kept asking on the letter Mom and he didn't let him alone and he was going to be court marshaled and he got off -- it happen that he got off about three minutes or so on to another ship before the Arizona was sunk and it was so close that my grandmother got a telegram he was missing. She [inaudible] to get that telegram and the phone rang next to her and they say he's all right.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So let's talk a little bit about March 1949 when they open the gates to the City of Oak Ridge and they had this big parade and speeches and parties and --
MS. HOUCHIN: It was something.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me what you remember about that.
MS. HOUCHIN: So many people from different companies and floats -- they made floats and different things and they had a parade -- and they'd lined up where all those flags used to be down in -- all down to Middletown. There were lines and we would have to get on those lines. It was all the way down -- turn back all the way back coming towards the stands and it broke up down there about a little [inaudible] where it used to be and my skate and dress is set and I like froze to death. The wind was terrible, the sun was pretty but that wind was terrible after. As they come by the main line come by each road and then it was -- I think it was the third time to fall in line -- that part was three hours long. Then after we get out there though and we could start moving skating I was kind of warmed up but that dress was awful and that's the coldest wind. It will go right through you.
MR. HUNNICUTT: The parade started at Middletown went down to Turnpike to Tahoe Road [crosstalk]--
MS. HOUCHIN: That pretty much where it brought us.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Tennessee to Jackson Square and then back over in [Federville?]. I want to show a picture of you on this back of a float at Myers Skating Rink. Hold that book up there and point out on the picture who -- where you are in that photograph.
MS. HOUCHIN: That's me right there.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about on the top photograph?
MS. HOUCHIN: That's me right there with Bill and he died just recently.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Turn it around and let the camera see the picture. You were on the white outfit that's Bill with you?
MS. HOUCHIN: Uh huh.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Who are the other people on the float?
MS. HOUCHIN: The boy in the back a little shorter he was one of my and I believed him -- you can't see her but I'm pretty sure it's Rosetta Hale with him. Then the little girl that was Mira that played the organ that was her daughter.
MR. HUNNICUTT: There was another younger girl in the picture.
MS. HOUCHIN: That's Johnny [Rosenbol?].
MR. HUNNICUTT: So that was on the back of a truck bed.
MS. HOUCHIN: They made the float that we were [pulled?] we made the best that we could at Oak Ridge Road [inaudible]
MR. HUNNICUTT: And you started down the Turnpike and whenever the parade was stopped was that when you would skate?
MS. HOUCHIN: No.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Then you would skate while the truck was moving.
MS. HOUCHIN: Yeah.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So what all did you do on the back of that truck?
MS. HOUCHIN: Well we didn't, we can’t do a whole lot but I mean we made circles, or you know, or kind of moved our feet around not just stand still or sitting on one side.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Okay. Was that pretty difficult to do the truck moving?
MS. HOUCHIN: No because it moved really slow to you know.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So what do you remember about the crowds on the side of the street.
MS. HOUCHIN: Oh Lord. They were something you could tell all those old cars and they stared. They really turned out, they're really are too.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So that --
MS. HOUCHIN: I remember that Rod Cameron with that horse and I remember the [inaudible].
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where they in front of you or behind you, do you remember?
MS. HOUCHIN: You know I just don't remember for sure now because there were so many lined up in that parade.
MR. HUNNICUTT: I've been told when Marie McDonald’s car would stop autograph seekers would go try to get autographs and that held the parade up.
MS. HOUCHIN: She got a little woozy, I think were she's over with to somebody. I didn't see her but somebody else is calling she was.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Oh she maybe had a little drink during the parade to keep warm maybe.
MS. HOUCHIN: I guess maybe, I don't know.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So you said it was pretty cold that day.
MS. HOUCHIN: The wind -- the temperature is -- if that wind hadn't been so sharp, it was awful.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So after you got out of the float at the end of the parade what happened after that, did you go to any of the other functions they had during the day?
MS. HOUCHIN: You know I can't remember, I'm sure some of us did but I just really can't remember right up the top of my head about that.
MR. HUNNICUTT: The American Museum of Atomic Energy opened that same weekend down the old Jefferson Cafeteria. Did you ever go in to the museum?
MS. HOUCHIN: Oh, yeah.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What do you remember about that?
MS. HOUCHIN: I remember you hear so much about mercury. Back then everybody was getting a dime with that slick mercury all over it. I remember that and I guess I remember kind of going more lately you know that Center Cafeteria this Village Cafeteria for a long time down there.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you spend more of your time in the West in Jefferson area than you did the other part of the town?
MS. HOUCHIN: Well I had several friends that lived all the way down. One of my very best friends her family lived on Robertsville down 600 blocks and then of course the table is up the other way and I had friends up there and we were just sort of scattered really. I say so many times I worked for people from all over the world every environment that you can imagine. I met some of the nicest of my friends all I ever have in my life.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me what you remember about the mud out in Oak Ridge on early days.
MS. HOUCHIN: Well for a while I didn't put [inaudible] we just lay on Monday night and the shoes I had that synthetic sole back then it didn't take a shoes to get them. Those poor people would come to town and leave their shoes up on my counter near my register that mud is that thick. Thrilled to death that we had their size.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, tell me about where you were working at this time?
MS. HOUCHIN: Polish Shoes in Knoxville. I didn't write about that down.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How long had you been working there?
MS. HOUCHIN: About 9 months I guess or a little longer but he kind of told me he sure but they told me in the main office I have to put it down on reference and he said "I'll give you a written [inaudible] anywhere you want one.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember back on those days, what did you hear about Oak Ridge before you came to work out here?
MS. HOUCHIN: All I heard about was that here comes a bunch of Oak Ridgers or they have every kind of coat they have or scarf on you can imagine and the muddy shoes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did the women dress pretty well?
MS. HOUCHIN: Well, yeah I mean a lot of them they wear slacks and things like that.
MR. HUNNICUTT: When you lived in Oak Ridge, where did you go to do your shopping if you needed anything.
MS. HOUCHIN: What we really have is some nice places to shop than now and have a lot of us women left to go [inaudible].
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where was that located?
MS. HOUCHIN: For a while it was just straight shop up there near the Ridge [inaudible] and then later it moved down there kind of down to the Square in Justice -- kind of to the right side of [inaudible] used to be.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Down in the New Downtown [crosstalk]. Up in the Old Jackson Square area, what some of the stores you remember up there?
MS. HOUCHIN: Well Ms. [Katherine?] kind of a winter dress shop down this side of Spinners Laundry and then of course I always remember the man he was so nice with the shoe store up there.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What was that stores name, do you remember? Was that Howard Shoe Store?
MS. HOUCHIN: Uh huh.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you do any grocery shopping while you lived down there.
MS. HOUCHIN: Not much. I may have when I live down on Jefferson and I had my son and then I have things to go and then --
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was your son born in Oak Ridge?
MS. HOUCHIN: Uh huh. We still had about to up in the old Hospital and he was born in the old Hospital.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What year was that?
MS. HOUCHIN: 1960.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And what his name?
MS. HOUCHIN: Barry.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And where did you live at that time?
MS. HOUCHIN: I live down Hamilton Circle.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What type of house is that?
MS. HOUCHIN: It was -- I don't know whether what do you call those hats?
MR. HUNNICUTT: Is that a TDU?
MS. HOUCHIN: It might be. We rent to our end from Neil and Francis --
MR. HUNNICUTT: So it was the two family duplex?
MS. HOUCHIN: In fact I really love it up there because and I always say if I could [inaudible] and they decided that they hated to ask to move but they decided they wanted to make one big family of the [inaudible]
MR. HUNNICUTT: What was your husband's name?
MS. HOUCHIN: Bill Houchin.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What did he do?
MS. HOUCHIN: He was a machinist over at 9212.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How did you met him?
MS. HOUCHIN: On a job.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did he come through your line?
MS. HOUCHIN: Uh huh.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Then he kept coming through your line pretty often?
MS. HOUCHIN: Yeah, and then of course some of his friends on one Sunday were going to go boat riding and water skiing , somebody said "Well why don't you ask her to go." And he thought she wouldn't go. Then they said "Why don't you ask her?" So he asked me and we went boat riding and of course it amazed me he was kind of clumsy like me but they really give him -- really hard time to throw him and I mean he really with him on those skis. So we got [crosstalk] --
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where was that, what lake was that?
MS. HOUCHIN: You know I don't remember exactly, if it was down toward Melton Hill or something I can't remember and he had to work shift.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What's the inside of the TDU look like?
MS. HOUCHIN: Well some of them had a one bedroom on one end and two on the other and some, they were just a few, I had 2 and 2 and then they had a three bedroom and they’d get a living room and had a kitchen. It had a wood like cabinet and my husband throw that one out. Imagine that's our kitchen and [inaudible] really nice. There's a really small hallway and one bedroom sit this way and then another one sits this way and they had a little small room, kind of a small room that I think is where we lived in. I really 10 years from lady I worked with during the war.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What type of heat was in the TDU?
MS. HOUCHIN: Well, way back MSI we had coal chutes and they come periodically and fill those coal chutes up and just filled them up, we don't have to pay for it I mean they just keep it full and we heated it with coal. Later a friend of mine when I thought I was going to get by mine I'm still bitter about that. My friend took the old stove out and I had a really nice thermo 220 heater and I had to just turn that on and it wouldn't take long it would heat up and the kitchen was really large and then later a friend gave me another one and said just leave it over kind of one corner here if you need an extra or something over there so I use those heaters as long as I lived there.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How do you wash your clothes?
MS. HOUCHIN: At a washer dryer combination.
MR. HUNNICUTT: In early days?
MS. HOUCHIN: No. When my son was first born like one of my friends we went to the laundromat for diapers and things like that and she’d watch my house for me. Finally then I said "Well, with what I pay for diapers service it will always make her take some money for washing my towels." Then I don't like my time having to go sit at the laundry, I just put two or three more dollars with it and get have seen those combination wash and dry where you put that in you have to be moving part of it washer and it went through so I had that.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So where was the laundromat located?
MS. HOUCHIN: Well we had one down at Jefferson and we had -- a friend of mine running that one down at [Rowe?].
MR. HUNNICUTT: And this was about what year was this?
MS. HOUCHIN: It was there about 1960 but I went through some like when my son was born.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now prior to living at TDU, where you -- you know lived in the dorm and then live in the TDU, where did you lived in between that time.
MS. HOUCHIN: No place.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You stayed in the dorm that a long time.
MS. HOUCHIN: Yeah. Well --my friend live down at [inaudible] Circle and I was playing ball and everything and she told me I've said, "This room and here is yours." And so I could always go down [Juanita's?]
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember what school your son attended?
MS. HOUCHIN: Yeah, he went to school in Oak Ridge and he went for Oak Ridge High School.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you think that the Oak Ridge school system was a good system?
MS. HOUCHIN: I sure do. I do very much.
MR. HUNNICUTT: I want to mention a few places and tell me what you remember about it. We already talked about the Oak Terrace Ball Room, what do you remember about that? You mentioned they had dancers upstairs, was that where the bowling was?
MS. HOUCHIN: It was really nice.
MR. HUNNICUTT: The most nicest --
MS. HOUCHIN: You never heard of any slang or old fashion or it was really nice they got good food there too.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How about the Snow White Drive In?
MS. HOUCHIN: It was good too. I had a lot of friends.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember where is located?
MS. HOUCHIN: Yeah. It's along Oak Ridge Turnpike.
MR. HUNNICUTT: About where?
MS. HOUCHIN: Well, let's see -- I don't know my direction. Kind of [inaudible] because they took the last dorm, I wanted to leave something for the younger people and he was -- did you say the other side of --
MR. HUNNICUTT: Wait a second, across the road from the Central Bus Station?
MS. HOUCHIN: I'd say give or take a few feet.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember a laundry next door later on here.
MS. HOUCHIN: Yes. There is. It's there somewhere.
MR. HUNNICUTT: I believe it was down Tyler --
MS. HOUCHIN: Well it maybe down on the corner there because --
MR. HUNNICUTT: You mean the New York Cleaners --
MS. HOUCHIN: Yeah, and --
MR. HUNNICUTT: So, the Snow White Drive In, what do you remember about it. Where you ever inside?
MS. HOUCHIN: All the time. Everyday. Drive-in, get waited on in your car.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So they have curb hops?
MS. HOUCHIN: Yeah. I had a friend that lived in dorm, she never ceases to amaze me. She was petite. One of the main secretaries of AEC. She came home to take her nap. She wanted somebody to go eat with her about 10:30 or 11:00 at night and she got up -- she had that hair, all that make up, and headed home in high heels shoes, her foot was about like that and a fur coat and that would be it and she go eat. We went to the [inaudible] -- for a while the rest was down there underneath [inaudible]. I said "Lord [inaudible] with you looking like you're attending a ball or somewhere and she go back home back to sleep, go to bed.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You mentioned the Mayflower. What was that?
MS. HOUCHIN: It was a really nice restaurant [inaudible].
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was that kind of off the other side of where Tennessee was located.
MS. HOUCHIN: No, it was on the same side.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Well I mean across the --
MS. HOUCHIN: Across [crosstalk]
MR. HUNNICUTT: What type of food did they serve there?
MS. HOUCHIN: They serve great and they had good steaks. I hosted and waited a couple of nights for [inaudible].
MR. HUNNICUTT: Mike [Capello?].
MS. HOUCHIN: Uh huh.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What some of the other places that you remember visiting in those days? You talked about --
MS. HOUCHIN: Well at the -- where the Armory was -- what did they call the restaurant down there?
MR. HUNNICUTT: There was an Adam's Cafeteria down there in that area where the dorm --
MS. HOUCHIN: It was on the left 105 and the Armory sits back there overseeing the Armory and then right over here was the this white building, a lot of people went there it was a restaurant also [inaudible]
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember in the days when doctors used to make house calls?
MS. HOUCHIN: Yeah.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me a little bit about that?
MS. HOUCHIN: Well I didn't know of any of those, I hear but I may not see and heard and I wondered some of them used to do it all. You didn't have to go to this and this and this for that everything [inaudible]
MR. HUNNICUTT: So you had one doctor, Dr. Eversole you had?
MS. HOUCHIN: Yeah and they were darn good too.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So if you had someone sick at home you can call the doctor's office and make arrangement for them to come to your home?
MS. HOUCHIN: Yeah. A lot of them would. I remember more less about my grandfather, he lived up of Martin Mill Path which we call that Hangout Country and some would come and has a time for him Mr. Petty [Gobough?].
MR. HUNNICUTT: That's over in the Knoxville area?
MS. HOUCHIN: Uh huh.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Well, what you use the hospital in Oak Ridge or how much did you use to, do you think it was a good hospital?
MS. HOUCHIN: Yeah, if I hadn't been through a domestic situation and they didn't pay much and they’d call me because they were interested and there's another cashier that --I didn't ever left, I wouldn't even [inaudible]. We were busy and we really worked.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So you worked at the hospital?
MS. HOUCHIN: I worked two years in the main office.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And what years were those, do you recall?
MS. HOUCHIN: Well let's say -- I say roughly ‘61 or ‘62 around on that, a little after my son was born.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about the dental offices, do you recall using the dentist very often?
MS. HOUCHIN: My dentist was in Clinton.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How long did you live in Oak Ridge, I know you don't live there now but --
MS. HOUCHIN: I left Oak Ridge because my mother was ill and my grandmother had passed away and she was living alone still at home and I was the only child. So she didn't have to be -- and friends just all jumped in and took all my junk and moved me into Knoxville with her and [inaudible] the Lord is just most merciful because she had captured a cold and gangrene had -- she took so many chemo therapy and I will have to say Dr. Grossman he really needs her chemo. She did outlive what the doctor's even thought, and she wasn't really strong but she was able to be at home and I didn't have to give up my job early. I got to go on and work and --
MR. HUNNICUTT: What was the last place that you worked, who did you retire from?
MS. HOUCHIN: [inaudible] but I don't know what to call all those letters. I just stayed of August of we met 20 years.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now you have a little around your neck [crosstalk]. Tell me about that?
MS. HOUCHIN: Somebody made that for me with the [inaudible]
MR. HUNNICUTT: How long have you had that?
MS. HOUCHIN: Ever since back in the early ‘50's I guess.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Let me take a look at that. That's quite unique.
MS. HOUCHIN: Yeah. They were few made that was solid platinum stainless but I like mine because you put [inaudible] it was real cute.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What's the most amazing thing you seen in your life?
MS. HOUCHIN: Oh, gosh. I don't know right now, if I could ask earlier I have to think. I couldn't thought of something.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about going to the moon or the Internet today?
MS. HOUCHIN: Well I'm such an antique, I don't have that Internet. I don't even know what it is.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you enjoy living in Oak Ridge?
MS. HOUCHIN: Yeah I did.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So if you had a few words to describe Oak Ridge in early days and all the time you live here how would you describe it?
MS. HOUCHIN: Well, there's a lot of hustle on the bus but like I said people were really, really good back then, you didn't hear anybody cursing out or fighting or shooting or stabbing somebody in the back. Everybody you know just like I tried to [inaudible] a while ago. Most of that I ever saw was men just having a beer which they won't bothering anybody and you know just a little beer before they went home and you didn't hear any word of slang or nothing. I did have a guy that call me a long haired bitch one night on my job and I turned to this girl and I said "What's a bitch?" I mean I really didn't even know. She went over to the table to Tony Osborne which one of our playing and she said -- she was cute and she was just little [inaudible]. She stood up and it was really nice. She said "Tony, what do you do when somebody calls you a long haired bitch?" And he said "Did somebody called you?" And she slang about three or four words, I mean she's mad she put that bag and her little short dress and bony legs. Anyway she made it a point is a good thing to do. Really I hated it; I had never gotten over it. He comes through the line we had three drivers that have had a little [nip?] at night and that -- is really good I mean they didn't automatically fire nobody or nothing you know what I mean they just smack their hand. Anyway he said something I don't remember -- it [inaudible] and I just -- I said "I came here like how's your mom." Or just something simple you know that's when -- he just give me -- he had just enough to be smart as our guess, that's when he say "You long haired bitch." I thought what I don't deserved that but he hadn't been what it was either but I knew it wasn't nice. Anyway, they come and go and I just begged him I just nearly cried, I didn't bother him. We both had to go to guard headquarters. My first night on our shift so later somebody told me I said "Please leave that man alone." And I said "I didn't mean nothing." I said "He just took it wrong or something." And I said "He might lose his job and I know he’s got children and I just can't stand it." Later about 2:30 in the morning they informed me they fired him and I nearly cried. They said "You hold up one minute it's not your fault." said the captain up there "Was really been nice to him, as a matter of fact he already told one guy he wanted to cut him to take him home." I guess that time the booze was working on him a little more I guess I don't know. They said he got kind of smart with the captain and the captain just probably picked up the phone call K-25, told him to give him a temporarily phased out, pick up his badge, make out any check of any amount of money. And I just never get over it. I'm just really sorry when it comes to children. Then we had a girl was working down eating -- baby cafeteria number 2 down towards the East Gate and we had a small cup of coffee for a nickel and we had those army mugs, they were nice. He said "I'll give you a nickel." she said "If you get that cup of coffee you go give me a dime." They got, she just kind of help, well she ended up in the guard quarters, our boss come in the next morning he said I want to know what happen that all my cashiers ended up in the guards quarters and so anyway he just wanted to get him, she just want to have it if she didn't pay for. So we had those two little episodes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Is there anything we hadn't talked about that you'd like to talk about?
MS. HOUCHIN: Right off I wish today was like it was back then. I've lost a lot of good friends.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Well it's been my pleasure to interview you and I believed your all interview would be a tribute to the history of Oak Ridge.
MS. HOUCHIN: Well, I hope --
MR. HUNNICUTT: I think that is something personal.
MS. HOUCHIN: I probably [inaudible]
MR. HUNNICUTT: I think that some person or young person or anyone that would like to know our history, yours would be part of it. I mean it's very interesting to know --
MS. HOUCHIN: You know that's why I've been a little bit ugly about tearing everything down. They think young people don't care. You wouldn't believe, I've got 10 or 12 Oak Ridge books and they just can't believe they were that many trailers and it's very educational to them you know and I was so glad that somebody donated the flattops in the museum and has some of the original furniture. I think it's wonderful.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Yes, it is. Where you ever in one of the trailers?
MS. HOUCHIN: Yeah.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me briefly about what it looked like inside a trailer.
MS. HOUCHIN: Well it's been too long I don't know if I could remember anything but we have one good friend I call him Paul and we go run by there it was in Middletown. They lived very comfortable they didn't seem to have no problem, they were small but you know it's --
MR. HUNNICUTT: One person described it like being going out on a camping trip now a days you know, you have a trailer and you went camping.
MS. HOUCHIN: I hadn't talk about it like that but I guess it kind of would in a way.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You mentioned Middletown. Is that where the Civic Center sits today, is that what you're calling Middletown in that area down in there by the turn.
MS. HOUCHIN: It's further down all the way up.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Well I thank you very much for coming out and letting us interview you.
MS. HOUCHIN: Well, one thing that I didn't tell you probably you know but it was amazing to everybody and my friend in Alabama she's dead now but always if you ever saw a line -- somewhere a line here [inaudible] and she like about it and one day to call to Ridge women and you know [inaudible] back to them it was money in the bank for you. She said "They went flying up through there to get mine [inaudible] but you mind getting in the line you didn't know what to have but you just we've been out a little awhile I couldn't get it so get to the line anyway.
MR. HUNNICUTT: I'm sure that a lot of the conversation took place on those lines isn't it.
MS. HOUCHIN: Oh yeah.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You met new friends, forgot to know something.
MS. HOUCHIN: That's the truth. We had some stories but a lot of times it was like heaven on earth if women got to go to Chattanooga and once in a while then they go to-- bunch would go to Chattanooga and I was walking at the street one day with somebody and he later turn -- you don't even know your name. He had holler at me three times [inaudible] in Oak Ridge you know.
MR. HUNNICUTT: He recognized you in Chattanooga?
MS. HOUCHIN: Uh huh.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Is there anything else you want to recall.
MS. HOUCHIN: Well, they did have some pretty things down there so I kept up with a lot of -- as far as I know I'm the only one left. At one time we had 75 cashiers and when the car -- you know didn't wish to -- East [inaudible] and my best friend live in Alabama and of course there may be a few that you know that I didn't be able to keep up with but to my knowledge I sat I was thank of everybody that worked all the cafeteria lines and not one left and one of them died recently their son and she was 98. She used to work at here in Oak Ridge.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What was her name?
MS. HOUCHIN: [inaudible] Goodman. Her husband was one of our bakers at Y-12. We had two of the best baker we've been ever had.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Those were good times.
MS. HOUCHIN: That's right, they really were, they sure were.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Well thank you very much for coming and giving you an interview.
MS. HOUCHIN: Nice meeting you.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Nice meeting you.
[End of Interview]